It’s been 104 weeks to the day since the football world turned upside down in response to the news of certain emails sent by Raiders coach Jon Gruden in 2011, when he worked for ESPN. By the following Monday, more emails emerged. By the next day, he was out.
In November 2021, Gruden sued the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell for weaponizing supposedly secret emails to take him out. Today, the case remains caught in the gears of the appellate court system in Nevada.
As explained by A.J. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com, the case is still pending before the Nevada Supreme Court, on the question of whether a trial court’s decision not to force the case to arbitration should be upheld, or overturned.
The NFL is trying desperately, as it often does, to avoid having the case play out in public court. It wants the case to be resolved by the secret, rigged kangaroo court in which the Commissioner or his designee resolves legal rights involving one or more of the 32 teams that employ the Commissioner.
Nothing will happen until the Nevada Supreme Court issues a decision. If the Nevada Supreme Court rules in Gruden’s favor, the NFL could (and probably will) ask the United States Supreme Court to take up the case.
That’s what the NFL did when St. Louis sued the league over the relocation of the Rams. The preliminary fight bogged the case down for years.
If Gruden ultimately secures the ability to proceed in the court system, and if he refuses any settlement offers, the truth will eventually come out as to who leaked the Gruden emails to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It remains very possible, then, that the NFL will fight and fight and fight until the moment to give up the goods arrives — and then make Gruden an offer he won’t refuse.
