“I’d be very surprised if he didn’t” – Agent of former Raiders HC Jon Gruden believes he will coach again in the NFL
Jon Gruden
Jon Gruden would’ve been starting his fifth-year as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders when the team played their first preseason game on Thursday. This unfortunately didn’t happen since his emails were leaked last October effectively firing him from the organization. He would still be coaching the Raiders if it weren’t for the leaked emails.
However, his agent, Bob Lamonte believes that Gruden’s return to the NFL is a sure thing in the near future. The timing of the email leaks continue to seem wrong but the language used by Gruden in those email exchanges was crude, disrespectful and he deservers the outcome handed to him.
Jon Gruden called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is “p***y”
In October 2021 when the league was investigating the Washington Football Team for workplace misconduct, it uncovered emails sent by Jon Gruden to then Washington general manager Bruce Allen. In these emails between 2011 and 2018, the language used by Gruden was racist, misogynistic, and it also contained homophobic slurs. In one of those emails, the former Raiders head coach referred to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as a “faggot” and a “clueless anti football pussy”. He further went to rant about how Goodell had pressured the Rams to draft a “queer” referring to Michael Sam, the first openly gay athlete in the league. Gruden also racially stereotyped NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith.
This brought a lot of heat on Gruden and he was immediately fired by Raiders owner Mark Davis and also removed from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Ring of Honor for winning the franchise their first ever Super Bowl. Despite of evidence stacked against Gruden, Lamonte is confident that Gruden will make a comeback to coaching for the third time in his career.
“I really believe in my heart and soul he will coach again,” Lamonte said while speaking with Ira Kaufman of JoeBucsFan.com. “I’d be very surprised if he didn’t. My question is what did Jon really do? Most people wouldn’t want their private e-mails from 10 days ago looked at. That’s why if this were to go to trial, it would be devastating for the National Football League.”
“This wasn’t good for anybody,” Lamonte said when asked about the Gruden’s emails. “That’s why he ended up suing the NFL and [Commissioner Roger] Goodell — because everyone knows it was wrong. You have 650,000 e-mails and his six were picked out and he wasn’t even in the league. He prevailed in court and he will prevail again.
He was in a state of shock and I was worried about him when this first broke because it was a shot in the dark in the middle of the night. I think the hardest thing for him was that it’s in the middle of October supposedly, all this information was known in August. Why now, of all things, does that come out in an investigation that had already gone away?”
Even if Gruden wishes to coach for teams other than the Bucs and the Raiders, there are far more talented coaches and very few open positions for teams to consider a 59-year-old head coach. Additionally, after his return to coaching after 10 years in a booth, he seemed to struggle a lot in his three-years in Las Vegas. Lamonte saying that Gruden will be back seems more like a far fetched wish than reality.
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Yash Karandekar
(1023 Articles Published)