Jon Gruden Is Officially Suing The NFL And Roger Goodell For Attempting To ‘Destroy’ His Career By Leaking Emails

Former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden is officially firing back at the NFL months after an email scandal cost him his job.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Gruden’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit accusing the NFL and Roger Goodell of deliberately attempting to destroy his career by leaking his racist, homophobic, and misogynistic emails obtained during the WFT workplace investigation.

Via Las Vegas Review Journal

“Through a malicious and orchestrated campaign, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell sought to destroy the career and reputation of Jon Gruden, the former head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,”

The 21-page complaint says that Gruden was “forced to resign” when the league continued to leak his emails to the media.

“When their initial salvo did not result in Gruden’s firing or resignation, Defendants ratcheted up the pressure by intimating that further documents would become public if Gruden was not fired,d. “They followed through with this threat by leaking another batch of documents to the New York Times for an October 11, 2021 article. On October 7, 2021, Jon Gruden was the head coach of the Raiders on a 10-year, $100-million contract. By October 11, 2021, he had been forced to resign.”

It is worth noting that several NFL insiders, including Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, believe the NFL leaked the emails that got Gruden in trouble.

Via Pro Football Talk

The obvious takeaway from Monday’s stunning leak of homophobic/transphobic/sexist emails following Friday’s stunning leak of one single racist email is that the NFL wanted Gruden out, and that the leaks were going to continue until he resigned or was fired.

The league wasn’t inclined to suspend Gruden. None of the emails released to date were sent when Gruden fell under the NFL’s jurisdiction. Even if he did (more on that below), there’s no specific provision of the Personal Conduct Policy that is directly violated by the contents of private communications.

Also, the league likely didn’t want to fight Gruden publicly over whether a suspension would have been appropriate. If Gruden had fought back, his lawyers would immediately have delved into the question of how, with more than 650,000 emails unearthed by the Washington Football Team investigation, only the emails Gruden sent to former Washington executive Bruce Allen have been released.

The NFL has been adamant that they didn’t leak Gruden’s emails.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this lawsuit plays out.