Gruden has a 117-112 career record but hasn’t won a playoff game since the Super Bowl victory over the Raiders in the 2002 season. Gruden had revived the Raiders in is first stint in 1998-2001 and then beat them in the Super Bowl the following season after he was traded to Tampa Bay for a boatload of draft picks. He finally got his prize in 2018 when Gruden agreed to leave ESPN and return to the sideline with a 10-year contract. “Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires,” Gruden wrote in the email reviewed by the newspaper.ĭavis had been trying to hire Gruden almost since he took charge following the death of his father, Al, in 2011. Gruden told the Wall Street Journal he was angry about the lockout during labor negotiations and he didn’t trust the direction the union was taking.
Gruden’s comments to Allen about Smith came during the 2011 lockout of the players by the NFL. “But make no mistake, the news is not about what is said in our private conversation, but what else is said by people who never thought they would be exposed and how they are going to be held to account,” Smith wrote in a Twitter thread. Smith said earlier Monday that he appreciates that Gruden reached out to him following the initial report, but that the email is evidence that the fight against racism is ongoing. Gruden also criticized President Barack Obama during his re-election campaign in 2012, and then-vice president Joe Biden. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the league hasn’t made the emails public. But the latest emails sent from between 2011-18 when Gruden was an analyst for ESPN show his use of derogatory language went well beyond that.Ī league source confirms the accuracy of the emails and said they were sent to the Raiders last week. Gruden apologized for his “insensitive remarks” about Smith, saying they were made out of frustration over the 2011 lockout.
The emails were discovered in a workplace misconduct investigation into the Washington Football Team but ended up costing Gruden his job when they also showed Gruden denounced the drafting of a gay player and the tolerance of players protesting during the playing of the national anthem among other issues. It started on Friday when the Wall Street Journal reported that Gruden used a racist term to describe NFL union chief DeMaurice Smith in a 2011 email to former Washington executive Bruce Allen. It was a rapid downfall for Gruden, who is in the fourth year of a 10-year, $100 million contract he signed with the Raiders in 2018. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision hadn’t been announced. The NFL Network first reported the development.Ī person familiar with the decision said special teams and assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia will take over on an interim basis.