Jon Gruden is in some hot water following a 2011 email that was leaked of the Las Vegas Raiders head coach calling the National Football League Players Association director DeMaurice Smith a racial trope.
But according to the New York Times, there are more e-mails that show Gruden calling commissioner Roger Goodell a homophobic slur for pressuring Jeff Fisher and the Rams to draft Micheal Sam.
Gruden’s messages were sent to Bruce Allen, the former president of the Washington Football Team, and others, while he was working for ESPN as a color analyst during “Monday Night Football,” the sports network’s weekly prime-time telecast of N.F.L. games:
In the emails, Gruden called the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, a “faggot” and a “clueless anti football pussy” and said that Goodell should not have pressured Jeff Fisher, then the coach of the Rams, to draft “queers,” a reference to Michael Sam, a gay player chosen by the team in 2014.
He denounced the emergence of women as referees, the drafting of a gay player and the tolerance of players protesting during the playing of the national anthem, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.
Gruden criticized Goodell and the league for trying to reduce concussions and said that Eric Reid, a player who had demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem, should be fired. In several instances, Gruden used a homophobic slur to refer to Goodell and offensive language to describe some N.F.L. owners, coaches and journalists who cover the league.
Gruden told ESPN on Sunday that the league was reviewing emails in which he criticized Goodell, and explained that he had been upset about team owners’ lockout of players in 2011, when some of the emails were written. Gruden said in that interview that had used an expletive to refer to Goodell and that he did so because he disapproved of Goodell’s emphasis on safety, which he believed was scaring parents into steering their sons away from football.
But as the report claims, Gruden’s emails were not limited to 2011. Gruden also exchanged emails with Allen and other one that included photos of women wearing bikini bottoms, including one photo of two Washington Football Team cheerleaders.
In an email from 2015, Allen and Gruden criticized a congressional bill that aimed to force the Washington franchise to change its name, which some Native Americans and others have denounced as a slur. Again using a vulgar term, Gruden took aim at Goodell and his staff even though the commissioner had initially defended the team’s right to keep the name.
The league is currently investigation the situation.
