Things got real for Randy Moss and the crew on ESPN Sunday Countdown.
The crew talked about the racist email from Jon Gruden towards DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association. The Wall Street Journal unearthed that email that Mark Davis, owner of the Raiders, called “disturbing.”
The emails had Randy Moss so emotional that he started crying on set.
“I’m very hurt by what I’m hearing coming from a guy like Jon Gruden where he’s done so much for the game of football.”
Rex Ryan: “I don’t know if Jon Gruden is a racist, but that comment sure was. And there’s no place in our league for that.”
Matt Hasselbeck: “I can’t respect this. I can’t respect this in 2011, I can’t respect this in 2021.”
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According to The Wall Street Journal, Gruden wrote about Smith in an email to Bruce Allen, who was the then-president of Washington’s NFL team, 10 years ago.
“Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires,” he wrote, according to the Journal.
Gruden, who was working for ESPN at the time, told The Wall Street Journal that he had been frustrated after the NFL coaches locked out their players over a contract dispute that year.
“The content of an email regarding DeMaurice Smith from Jon Gruden when he worked for ESPN 10 years ago is disturbing and not what the Raiders stand for,” he tweeted Friday. “We were first made aware of the email late yesterday by a reporter and are reviewing it along with other materials provided to us today by the NFL. We are addressing the matter with Coach Gruden and will have no further comment at this time.”
“I’m really sorry,” Gruden said in an interview with the publication. “I was upset. I used a horrible way of explaining it.”
“I don’t think he’s dumb. I don’t think he’s a liar,” Gruden told the Journal, referring to Smith. “I don’t have a racial bone in my body, and I’ve proven that for 58 years.”
Smith also responded to The Wall Street Journal’s report.
“This is not the first racist comment that I’ve heard and it probably will not be the last,” he said in a statement to CBS News. “This is a thick skin job for someone with dark skin, just like it always has been for many people who look like me and work in corporate America. You know people are sometimes saying things behind your back that are racist just like you see people talk and write about you using thinly coded and racist language.”
