“Jon Gruden stepped down Monday as the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders football team hours after The New York Times detailed emails in which he had made homophobic and misogynistic remarks.” New York Times
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2011 Gruden “sent an email about DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, to a team executive. Gruden’s email described Smith with a racist trope common in anti-Black imagery.” Wall Street Journal
Many on both sides accuse the NFL of hypocrisy:
“There is a blatant and disturbing double standard in the outrage over Gruden’s emails versus how the NFL treats its star players when they are involved in misconduct. It’s no secret that the league has long allowed moneymakers to get away with assault, domestic violence, and other horrible crimes so long as they perform on the field…
“Gruden’s emails were unearthed during the discovery process for an investigation into the [Washington Football Team’s] alleged toxic workplace environment. Investigators had access to more than half a million emails as part of the investigation, but oddly only Gruden’s were leaked to the media. Not only have we not seen Snyder’s emails, we don’t even really know the results of the investigation because the NFL opted not to publicly release detailed findings…
“To recap, if you are accused by nearly 50 women of running a toxic and sexist workplace environment but suck up to the NFL commissioner, you will get a slap on the wrist. If you beat your girlfriend, you will be drafted and rewarded with a multi-million dollar contract. But if you call the NFL commissioner a ‘pussy,’ ‘someone’ will leak your emails to the media and you will lose your job.”
Amber Athey, Spectator USA
“If the NFL is seeking to repair its image, what about the Washington Football Team? The Gruden emails were directed to Bruce Allen, who was president of the team at the time, and thus were unearthed as part of the WFT investigation. Did Mr. Allen, or any other Washington executive, object or report the offensive remarks? The public doesn’t know the answer to that, or many other questions, because the league instructed the lawyer who had been hired to investigate the Washington Football Team not to prepare a written report…
“The National Football League spent 10 months investigating the toxic culture of the Washington Football Team after dozens of women came forward with complaints of sexual harassment and mistreatment. It interviewed hundreds of witnesses and collected some 650,000 documents. No information, nothing but a vacuous statement, was released… ‘Why has the NFL gone to such lengths to bury this investigation but yet is willing to cherry pick these emails and put them out in the public sphere?’ asked Lisa Banks, attorney for 40 women who brought complaints… What are they hiding?”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
Other opinions below.
“Gruden’s comments about [Roger] Goodell might have used salty language, but I heard worse from my high-school coaches. He clearly was using the first term to express weakness and cowardice (as well as in ‘pussy’), a rather routine usage in sports. The part about actually gay players is tougher to explain away, other than Gruden is a product of his own time in that regard — and that Gruden was hardly alone in the NFL about [Michael] Sam at the time. Call it ‘toxic masculinity,’ if you will, but don’t doubt for a moment that Gruden was the rule rather than the exception from this era…
“Will Gruden come back? After a season or two of sensitivity training and public atonement, maybe. At least by that time the league and its fans will have gained some perspective on Gruden and might better appreciate the ethically murky context of peeking into someone’s personal e-mails for dirt. Gruden owes DeMaurice Smith and perhaps Michael Sam an apology, but perhaps the league owes Gruden one, too.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“This was clearly an orchestrated effort to punish Gruden for past comments and drive him out of the NFL… Gruden’s comments came in a series of emails from 2011 to 2018. It is 2021. In a legal setting, a statute of limitations would have expired. But the elites will fire Gruden for inappropriate comments made a decade ago in an email he presumed was private…
“There’s no reason to justify Gruden’s comments, but they are the sorts of things some people will say in private. They have not affected his ability to coach a team. They just made people mad — but made people mad who seventy-two hours ago were perfectly fine without knowledge of the old emails… Gruden’s work product speaks for itself. He has done a tremendous job with the Raiders. He should apologize for his remarks. He should still have his job.”
Erick-Woods Erickson, Substack
“Gruden's deplorable behavior mirrors an ingrained corporate and workplace culture that continues to condemn, criticize and ostracize people of color, women and LGBTQ+ individuals… No, we can't always regulate reckless behavior and reckless speech – written or oral – in the workplace. But examples can be made of people like Gruden, examples that will hopefully educate others and root out bigotry in all areas.”
Suzette Hackney, USA Today
“In a sports league where upwards of 70% of the players are African American, the NFL's paucity of Black head coaches (3 out of 32), general managers ([5] out of 32), presidents of football operations (one out of 32), and team owners (none) speaks to a staggering lack of representation in the league's power structures…
“It is past time for the NFL to take bolder steps, commensurate with the systemic problem of racism that continues to affect the league. This warrants major overhaul of the league's front office hiring practices, along with greater public transparency and accountability measures regarding inclusivity efforts for the vendors, affiliates and supply chains that form part of the massive financial ecosystem of this billion-dollar enterprise.”
Peniel E. Joseph, CNN
“We watch the athletic genius of Black athletes and the destruction of Black bodies, while staggering profits accrue for the residents of the owners’ boxes, staring down upon the fields like a collection of hunched-over Caesars. This setup — and the need for both a racial and labor discipline — is a powder keg for the kind of discontent that could tear the league apart…
“If the rollout of Gruden defenders on Sunday before the big email drop is any indication, we are probably looking at stormy skies ahead. The modern-day Caesars would be wise to change course. Empires far grander than the NFL's have crashed and burned for less.”
Dave Zirin, MSNBC