So far, of the 650,000 emails involved in the NFL’s investigation into sexual misconduct within the Washington Football Team, the biggest reveals so far have been about Jon Gruden and Adam Schefter. We have not yet heard anything on things relating directly to Washington or Dan Snyder, other than that Bruce Allen really doesn’t know when it isn’t appropriate to use his work email.
Based on all of the horrible things said by Gruden in the released emails, which included racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comments, and a clear disregard for player safety, it’s hard to feel bad for the now-former Las Vegas Raiders coach. It’s hard to think that he would be an appropriate leader for any football team, given what was said.
There is an interesting open question about how The New York Times obtained the Gruden emails. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told ProFootballTalk that the league had no role in those emails getting out.
The NFL says that it will not disclose the emails as it works through the investigation. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, who was the subject of the first email from Jon Gruden that leaked, tells USA Today that his group will request the release of the rest of the emails, but it is unclear if the league will comply, raising questions about what that actually pertains to the WFT franchise is in them.
NFL contends that it released no Jon Gruden emails. https://t.co/6XjaZR9d8n
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) October 12, 2021
Mike Florio says that if this was a true leak, and the NFL was not involved, it has a serious issue on its hands. From the PFT piece:
If the NFL didn’t leak the information from the highest levels of the organization, the failure of the highest levels of the organization to do or say something about it becomes, at some point, tacit approval of the leak.
Here’s the reality. Whoever leaked the Gruden emails surely had (and quite possibly still has) access to the other emails from the Washington Football Team investigation. If nothing will be done by the league to determine the leak and plug it, that same person has the ability to leak more emails, whether as to Gruden or Allen or others.
If The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other outlets have access to the trove of emails, whatever damning contents therein will eventually be published. One has to think the NFL would rather get out ahead of it, if it isn’t behind the leaks that have already occurred.
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