In the last photo of Jon Gruden as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders Gruden leaves the podium in the Raiders press room facility on Sun Oct 10, 2021 in a post game presser after coaching against the Chicago Bears. The media grilled Gruden about his emails to Bruce Allen which was the hotter subject than about the game the Raiders just lost. (AP News photo)
By Tony Renteria
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigned Monday afternoon as more emails were uncovered that showed that the Raiders head coach had sent comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, remarks about women and former St Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher drafting gay player Michael Sam as reported by the New York Times on Monday afternoon.
The Wall Street Journal as reported on Thursday that Gruden sent out a July 2011 racist email about NFL Player Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith when Gruden was working as an analyst on ESPN.
Gruden wrote about Smith in an email to former Washington Football Team president Bruce Allen that Smith had lips “the size of Michelin tires.” Washington is under discrimination investigation by the NFL and the NFL have requested all documents and emails forwarded to the league office and it was there the Gruden emails were discovered.
Smith responded by saying that Gruden had issues dealing with people who look like him in executive positions and “The email from Jon Gruden and some of the reaction to it confirms that the fight against racism, racist tropes and intolerance is not over. This is not about an email as much as it is about a pervasive belief by some that people who look like me can be treated as less,” Smith said.
On Monday afternoon the Times disclosed that Gruden had emailed Allen saying of Goodell was a “fa****t” and a “clueless anti football p****y.” On Fisher and his having Sam an openly gay player who was drafted to the Rams in 2014 at that time Gruden said that Fisher shouldn’t have buckled under by drafting “queers.”
Gruden also wrote that he didn’t like women referees in sports and players taking a knee during the national anthem protesting for racial justice. Gruden and Allen according to the Times said that Gruden and Allen exchanged photos of topless women including a photo of one of the Washington cheerleaders.
Gruden’s career as head coach in the NFL started with the Oakland Raiders from 1998 to 2001, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2002-2008, he left to be an analyst from 2009-2017 for ESPN before coming back as head coach of the Raiders in 2018.
After this second wave of emails that was reported in the Times there was no way that Gruden could survived it and he knew it and had to resign. Gruden was in the fourth year of his ten year $100 million contract contract.
Tony Renteria does the Las Vegas Raiders podcasts each Thursday at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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