Jon Gruden has made a few enemies in the NFL over his career. One or more of them seems to have gotten him back.
No one is excusing the content of Gruden’s 10 year-old emails dating back to when he was an employee at ESPN, but the consensus seems to be that Gruden had a bullseye on his back from somewhere within the league.
“Someone in the NFL doesn’t like Jon Gruden. That’s the bottom line because this investigation was done by the NFL and this was the only thing to be made public from all those emails,” former NFL quarterback Brady Quinn said on Fox Sports Radio on Tuesday.
LaVar Arrington, who also played in the league, agreed with Quinn.
“This information has been there. Somebody knew about these emails and interactions long before they came out,” Arrington said. “How does that information come out? It seems like there’s something more here and it seems almost mobbish.”
And then there’s this from ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio:
“Somebody wanted him gone.”
For all the negative rumors and accusations swirling around the Washington Football Team, it’s hard to believe that the only information uncovered in the league’s extensive investigation involved Gruden.
If the league genuinely felt strongly about the content of Gruden’s emails, why did they sit on the emails for so long?
If the Raiders were too slow to fire Gruden (as NBC’s Peter King implied on Tuesday), why shouldn’t the league be held accountable for what they knew about over a year ago?
And the tougher question to answer… why has the league chosen to hide what they learned about the “toxic” culture in Washington?
If the NFL is going to execute it’s moral authority on Gruden, it should be obligated to exercise the same moral authority upon everyone employed within the league. Any outcome where the league covers up the actions of Washington owner Dan Snyder, or anyone else in the WFT organization, would suggest the league doesn’t care as much their internal culture as they claim.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Couldn’t agree more. However, there is no excuse for what Gruden said, period. The NFL brass is not the moral compass they claim to be and they are trying to cover things up for their personal agenda. If anyone believes that Gruden, out of left field, was the only person to say certain things or send derogatory emails out of 650,000 emails reviewed, they should have their heads examined. I say, let the whole story come out. It’s the only way I’ll ever have any respect left for Roger Goodell and his cronies.
I’m still a Raiders’ fan for life.