Getty Image / Ethan Miller
It has been more than a year since Jon Gruden’s emails leaked as part of the investigation into workplace misconduct in the Washington Commanders’ organization, but it seems football fans hadn’t seen all those emails contained yet.
Today, the GOP’s Oversight Committee released their report on the Commanders scandal and revealed some new information.
The 74-page report took aim at higher-ups in the Commanders organization and also included some new emails from Gruden.
One of those emails saw Gruden taking a pretty brutal shot at the Raiders, a team he would later coach, and quarterbacks from USC.
In this new email, Gruden said, “Raiders suck. Palmer another USC p****.”
At the time of this email, the Raiders were in the midst of a pretty brutal season. They had recently fallen to 1-3 after losing to the Broncos 37-6. The Raiders had been held to 14 points or less in all 3 of their losses.
Carson Palmer was actually 1 of 2 USC quarterbacks on this team, with Matt Leinart serving as backup on the roster. Leinart likely did a bit more damage to the reputation of USC quarterbacks over the course of his career. Players like Mark Sanchez and Sam Darnold haven’t done much to fix that reputation since.
Despite throwing for just over 4000 yards during this season, it would be Palmer’s last with the Raiders after the team struggled to a 4-12 record. He would then be replaced by a quarterback from another school that has a reputation for producing disappointing NFL QBs. That replacement was Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor.
Carson Palmer would quickly remind football fans that he didn’t suck in his next stop, going 29-9 in his first 3 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals and leading the team to the NFC Championship Game in 2015.
Jon Gruden would eventually get a chance of his own to put together a better Raiders team. Instead, he put together a 22-31 record before resigning early in his 4th season with the team.