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It's about to get very interesting. There's been a lot going on lately this football season: The Odell Beckham Jr drama, The Aaron Rodgers COVID saga just to name a couple of things that have grabbed the headlines. Plus it's been one of the craziest seasons I can remember with so many games going down to the wire and so many underdogs finding ways to win. One thing we haven't heard a lot about lately? The infamous investigation into some 650,000 emails from the Washington Football Team as the league looked into what has been described as a toxic work environment by the 40 former WFT employees suing the club. THAT... is about to change Former Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden has filed a lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell over his emails being leaked to the public that lead to his resignation. Those emails contained some racist, misogynistic and homophobic language. Gruden's attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner of McDonald Carano, said in a statement that the lawsuit was filed in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County, Nevada.
And this is where it gets very very complicated. Jon Gruden is 58 years old and in all likelihood will never coach again. He also has plenty of free time and, most importantly in this situation, piles of money. He made a kings ransom coaching for decades in the NFL and made even more calling games for ESPN on Monday Night Football. For a several year period he was believed to be the highest paid employee at ESPN. In his lawsuit Gruden's attorney's claim that the NFL and Goodell are alleged to have "sought to destroy the career and reputation" of Gruden through "a malicious and orchestrated campaign". But it doesn't stop there. The complaint also goes on to say "In contrast to the formalities of the Washington Football Team investigation, defendants’ treatment of Gruden was a Soviet-style character assassination. There was no warning and no process." The NFL has denied this allegations saying they are completely without merit.
I find the phrasing in the lawsuit very interesting. "A Soviet style character assassination" isn't a sentence you just type in casually. Most lawsuits are about money, Gruden has plenty of that. This appears to be about extracting a measure of revenge for him being the sacrificial lamb in the investigation. It is odd that out of all those emails from a team HE DIDN'T COACH his were the only ones leaked to the press. I want to be clear I'm in no way defending any of the language in those emails. But it does strain credulity that those were the only ones that contained that kind of language, especially when the Washington Football team is being sued by so many claiming it was a horrendous place to work for women. How did those emails get leaked? Who leaked them? What was the intent of the leaking? Jon Gruden wants to know, and quite frankly so do a lot of people. This may be one time where throwing money at someone to settle may not cut it. A man with a fortune to his name already and with an axe to grind can be a very dangerous enemy to have. Especially when it comes to a certain legal term called " discovery". Discovery, simply put, is a pre-trial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party can obtain evidence from the other party or parties by means of discovery devices such as requests for production of documents. BANG. Basically this is Gruden's way of saying let's see what else you have there. That is something the NFL is going to fight like hell to avoid. To quote Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Jurassic Park, "hold on to your butts".
