Gruden emails were part of June court filing

Several inflammatory emails by Jon Gruden were filed as exhibits in federal court by attorneys for Washington Football Team owner Daniel Snyder in mid-June, almost four months before they were leaked to two newspapers and led to Gruden’s resignation as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

The heavily redacted emails between Gruden and then-Redskins president Bruce Allen filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona include offensive language, chummy conversations with journalists — including an ESPN journalist referring to Allen as “Mr. Editor” while seeking feedback on an unpublished story he sent to Allen to review — and a barrage of complaints about the state of the NFL.

The emails are identical to some of those reported this week by the New

York Times. That story detailed homophobic and misogynistic comments by Gruden in emails with Allen. A day earlier the Wall Street Journal reported Gruden used a racist trope in another email exchange.

Gruden’s name is redacted in most of the emails filed in court, replaced with “ESPN Personality.”

He was employed by the network as the “Monday Night Football” analyst before rejoining the Raiders in 2018.

However, Gruden’s name and personal email address aren’t redacted — apparently by mistake — in an exchange with Allen from November 2017 discussing a news story about the NFL potentially keeping teams in their locker rooms during the national anthem because of players kneeling on the field in protest during the song.

“These guys can’t come up with a good idea if their life depended on it,” Allen wrote.

Gruden sent a one-word response — starting with “p” and ending in “ies” with the three middle letters redacted.

In another email, the “ESPN Personality” wrote Allen in August 2014 and called a “Redacted — Football Person” a “clueless anti football p–-y.” The New York Times reported the email referred to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Allen responded: “I think that summarized properly.”

Several emails between Allen and journalists are part of the filing too. In one of them from July 2011, ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter sent Allen the draft of an unpublished story that was published later the same day.

“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”

The emails were filed as part of an effort by Snyder’s legal team to compel Allen to produce discovery in connection with a defamation lawsuit Snyder is pursuing in India against a media company called MEAWW for stories it published in July 2020.

Gruden, in the fourth year of a 10-year, $100 million contract, resigned Monday shortly after the New York Times published its story.