Did the NFL leak Gruden emails to protect "Redskins" owner Dan Snyder?
… “an all-time misdirection play”
The truth is that Jon Gruden’s despicable emails were found in a review of 650,000 that were part of the investigation into the Washington Football Team formerly known as the Redskins. The team was fined $10 million by the NFL in June, but no one in the team hierarchy, has been disciplined.
Owner Dan Snyder, one of the most despised owners in sports by a team’s fans, was removed from day to day operations of the team, but his wife was placed in charge.
However, the only person who has lost his job because of the Washington scandal has been the coach of the Raiders, Jon Gruden, whose emails were discovered and reportedly leaked by the NFL — though no one knows for certain.
Could it be that the NFL leaked the Gruden emails to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal because he hammered Commissioner Roger Goodell in them?
Gruden despicable, but Snyder should be the target
The emails of Gruden were homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and even worse, but he was not the target of this investigation,
The NFL has fined the Washington Football Team $10 million for fostering a workplace culture where sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation were commonplace throughout most of Daniel Snyder’s ownership, the league announced Thursday, but it declined to release a detailed investigative report or address any allegations levied by former employees against Snyder.
“The culture of the club was very toxic and fell far short of the NFL’s values,” Lisa Friel, the league’s special counsel for investigations, said during a conference call with reporters.
The NFL did not suspend Snyder but said that his wife, Tanya, named the team’s co-CEO this week, will assume responsibilities for all day-to-day team operations and represent the team at all league meetings and other league activities for at least the next several months. There was little to no sentiment among other owners throughout the process to force Snyder to sell the franchise, people familiar with the situation have said.
The fine was the outcome of a lengthy league investigation overseen by prominent D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson. The NFL will not release any detailed findings from Wilkinson’s investigation beyond a news release, Friel said. In a contrast to previous league investigations, such as its probe into a video showing former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice assaulting his fiancee, the NFL did not request any written report from Wilkinson but instead heard her findings orally, Friel said, “due to the sensitivity of the allegations.”
Will Hobson, Mark Maske, Liz Clarke, Beth Reinhard, “NFL fines Washington
football team $10 million,” Washington Post, July 2, 2021
Snyder’s reign has been horrific, taking a strong franchise into the depths of the NFL in his 20 years. However, the reality is that he has skated free—so far.
“Collateral damage”
Gruden is truly despicable, but now, Dan Snyder is finally receiving some public scrutiny,
Jon Gruden is sports’ latest cretin in our midst. The racist, misogynistic, homophobic emails he exchanged with Bruce Allen, former president of the Washington Football Team, are just part of the digital footprint of filth discovered during the NFL investigation of the team’s toxic culture.
But Gruden’s freefall — though deserved — should also be recognized as one of the all-time misdirection plays in league history. The disgraced coach is collateral damage from a 10-month investigation that validated reports of Washington’s culture of sexual and verbal harassment of female employees under the stewardship of owner Dan Snyder.
In July, the NFL fined the Washington Football Team $10 million over its workplace culture — a pittance for a club valued at $4.2 billion. Snyder was temporarily removed from day-to-day business operations but not formally suspended. While the white-hot light of truth torches Gruden, other findings of the league’s investigation remain buried — and Snyder remains unscathed.
… Yet as ugly as Gruden’s emails were, he never had an owner’s power. It was Snyder who lorded over a warped corporate culture, where staffers secretly produced and shared topless photos and videos of cheerleaders. It was Snyder who vowed never to give in to protests over Washington’s slur of a team name and who went through the motions of complying with an NFL rule to provide opportunities for coaches of color when he had already hired a White head coach.
Mike Wise, “Jon Gruden is collateral damage. Where’s the accountability
for Dan Snyder?” Washington Post, October 13, 2021
White: “Own your part”
In White’s analysis, it was Gruden’s disparaging remarks that wrote of Goodell in sleazy, homophobic terms that pushed the NFL to anonymously leak the emails of Gruden,
If you’re going to start doing the right thing when it comes to hiring qualified coaches and executives of color; if you’re going to respect women in the workplace and Native Americans; heck, if you’re going to hire a team president who doesn’t spout anti-gay sentiments and email images of half-naked women — team employees or not — to his Neanderthal friends, you need to take accountability for your role in all the bad. Own your part.
And after the first step of doing the right thing, you have to remember that for many decades you did the wrong thing.
It’s unconscionable that neither Snyder nor the organization has condemned the emails or Allen (who did not return texts and a phone call seeking comment).
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell must be held accountable, too. Strange that of the 650,000 documents examined during the league’s investigation, the only emails leaked are those that detonated the legacies of Allen and Gruden — emails in which Gruden referred to Goodell with homophobic slurs and accused of him pressuring the then-St. Louis Rams into drafting the league’s first openly gay player.
Mike White, Washington Post, October 13, 2021
More to come on this.
I am not sticking up for Gruden, who has always been one of those “frat boys” who somehow found his way into coaching but never had any morality or qualms.
However, protecting a team and throwing someone else under the bus is wrong.
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