The National Football League is having a tremendous year ratings wise with fans fully back in stadiums, but they are dealing with a public relations nightmare with the continued release of emails during the investigation of the Washington Football Team.
On Thursday night while the Eagles were taking on the Patriots, more emails surfaced that showed Jeff Pash, the NFL’s top lawyer, frequently emailed former Washington president Bruce Allen. The two were said to have discussed the cheerleading scandal, brokered penalties, arranged perks, mocked Latinos, joked about lowering player salaries.
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In a 2011 exchange where Allen appeared to be upset over a referee, he said to Pash that he hoped his team wouldn’t have to see him “until every club has had the privilege of his services for five games.”
Pash replied: “will follow up and call you tomorrow.”
The league officials said Pash has no control over officiating or who officiates which game, but there was nothing untoward about him willing to hear out Allen’s complaints.
In one 2016 email exchange, after a Black woman was hired as the NFL’s new vice president of public policy and government affairs, Allen wrote to Pash: “Curious — is there a rule against hiring Libertarians, Independents or even a Republican? We have the Rooney Rule …. So I’m going to propose a Lincoln Rule at the next meeting.”
The NFL would soon release a statment:
“Communication between league office employees and club executives occurs on a daily basis,” NFL Executive V.P. of Communications Jeff Miller told the Times in a statement. “Jeff Pash is a respected and high-character N.F.L. executive. Any effort to portray these emails as inappropriate is either misleading or patently false.”
It seems as if the emails from the Washington franchise are getting everybody in hot water except for anybody currently attached to Washington.
DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, is one of many who are curious about what else is in the treasure trove of emails that were gathered as part of the league’s investigation into the Washington Football Team. He stated on Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN’s “The Right Time with Bomani Jones” podcast he wonders whether there could be evidence that hiring decisions were made based on a candidate’s skin color.
“What I’m interested in — is there correspondence that suggests teams are making decisions about coaches based on the color of their skin? Are they actively hostile to players that have chosen to self-identify in various ways? Are they denigrating of people based on sexual preference or religious identity?” he said.
His comments came days after Jon Gruden resigned as Las Vegas Raiders coach following more leaks of homophobic and misogynistic emails being released in The New York Times.
Smith told USA Today the union plans to file a petition to get the rest of the 650,000 emails involved in the probe released.
