Jon Gruden has taken a page from the playbook of longtime Raiders owner Al Davis.
The former Raiders coach has sued the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell in Nevada state court.
“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 lawsuit alleges, via David Ferrara of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The complain contend that Gruden was “forced to resign” as a result of the persistent leak of supposedly secret emails from the Washington Football Team investigation.
“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,” the lawsuit filed Thursday on Gruden’s behalf alleges. “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.”
The initial article from the Review-Journal did not link the full complaint. Once it’s available, we’ll perform a full and complete analysis.
One key factor is whether the Raiders were specifically named as defendants. If so, the NFL won’t be able to remove the case from state court to federal court, a common practice by out-of-state interests that hope to avoid possible “home cooking” from elected state-court judges.
Obviously, Gruden got what he deserved based on the content of emails he sent to former Washington executive Bruce Allen. However, the emails should not have been weaponized to take Gruden out. Through this litigation, much more undoubtedly will be learned regarding who leaked the emails, and why.
