Canceling Gruden is ‘the tip of the iceberg’
John Gruden, head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders was canceled this week. He resigned 3½ years into his 10year/$100 million contract and now no NFL team or sports media will touch him. Somebody targeted Gruden and he’s persona non grata. Gruden is collateral damage, the patsy stooge from the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Redskins.
The NFL was doing background research on the toxic work environment of the Washington Redskins. Said Brittany Pareti, a former Redskins employee, “It was like fresh meat to a pack of wolves every time a new pack of interns would come in. It was like a frat house, with men lined up in the lobby watching women walk in and out. You constantly felt there were eyes on you.” A team of lawyers was doing a deep dive into the Redskins email server containing 650,000 emails.
They came across a 2011 email that John Gruden, then an NFL announcer wrote to Bruce Allen, the former Washington Redskins general manager where Gruden made racist remarks regarding DeMaurice Smith, who is Black and the executive director of the National Football League Players Association. That was bad enough, then additional Gruden emails were later leaked to the press where Gruden spoke badly of gays, women and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Gruden called Goodell a “slang for cat” and a gay slur that rhymes with maggot. Goodell’s brother is gay.
When I first heard about Gruden’s emails, I thought he would go all Trump and say it was nothing but “locker room talk”. Unlike the former dude, at least Gruden’s been in a locker room. Besides, what Trump said about grabbing women by the “privates” was 10 times worse than what Gruden said and what did we do with Trump? Oh yeah, elected him President of the United States. 48% of our country doesn’t have a problem with Gruden thoughts. I can already hear Fox News talking about free speech and cancel culture striking yet again.
I’m in no way supporting the racist, misogynist and homophobic emails that Gruden was stupid enough to put in writing, leaving a digit footprint over a seven-year period. I’m simply asking if this was a 10-month long investigation into the Washington Redskins, where are the emails describing the sexual harassment caused by the Redskins owner and executives? There were over 650,000 emails on the Redskins email server and yet the only emails we’ve seen were written by Gruden.
Just win, baby! Mark Davis, the Las Vegas Raiders owner is no Al Davis. The late Al Davis was the first NFL owner to hire a Hispanic head coach (Tom Flores), the first to hire a Black head coach (Art Shell), the first to hire a female executive (CEO Amy Trask). Al Davis cared about winning. He didn’t care about your color, race, religion or gender. Considering that the average NFL team is 67% Black and that the Raiders have the only openly gay NFL player, we expected strong words from the team owner. So far, Mark Davis has remained quiet on the Gruden emails saying only, “No comment. Ask the NFL. They have all the answers.” This tells us someone from the NFL leaked these emails.
Bruce Snyder, the Washington Redskins owner and 31 other ridiculous wealthy white men belong to the Billionaire’s Boys Club. Billions, alcohol and ego can make a bad combination, just ask Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. There was a lot of pressure last year on Snyder to change the name of the Redskins and he vowed to never do it … until he did. He changed the team’s name to the Washington Football Team or WFT, which I call WTF. Yet not a single email has been released on the Redskins when numerous women have come forward over the years complaining of sexual harassment from Snyder himself and many other Redskins front office personnel.
Gruden was targeted to get canceled. Someone weaponized his emails against Gruden. Did he put ignorant words in writing — yes. Is he the first person in NFL history to say or do stupid things? Hello! Where do I start? The NFL is a violent, macho male culture that doesn’t give you the right to sexually harass someone in the workplace. This week was the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole lot more below the surface that will come out soon. In the meantime, the NFL owners are circling the wagons to protect their most valuable asset — themselves.