How to Lose Your Job in an Email

Jon Gruden had a terminal case of Football Guy mentality.

One of my favorite tropes is when people fail to grasp the permanence of basic methods of telecommunications.

Take, for example, former Las Vegas Raiders coach John Gruden, who was fired last night in the middle of the season after 10-year-old emails surfaced in which he used slurs, bashed women referees, tried to blackball a player for kneeling during our national fight song, and — most unforgivable to the NFL — called league commissioner Roger Goodell an “anti-football pussy.”

Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland

To recap, Jon Gruden: 1) Used racist tropes against an NFLPA exec 2) Called Goodell a homophobic slur 3) Wanted Eric Reid blackballed for kneeling 4) Suggested the first openly gay player shouldn't be in the league 5) Slammed concussion mitigation efforts nytimes.com/2021/10/11/spo…

This is what happens when a Boomer-adjacent coach overdoses on the Football Guy Mentality. This man was talking like Jim Crow was still legal in company emails. And it’s not like this guy worked as a tire salesman in rural Pennsylvania. He was a prolific employee at the most powerful sports media company in the world.

You don’t have to think very hard about the things Gruden said when he was just ripping off the cuff with the numerous people his role demands he interacts with. Nobody heard anything? Nobody saw anything? Instead we’re only learning about this when it’s most politically expedient for the NFL? Not to mention the story only indicated at a scenario that is way worse than just some run-of-the-mill dipshit calling people queers:

Computer Cowboy @benbbaldwin

There are a lot of terrible things about this Gruden story but I can't get over Bruce Allen forcing Washington's cheerleaders to do a topless photoshoot and then using his team email account to send the pictures to Gruden

Gruden was nonchalant in peddling his caveman politics in the group chat because powerful people within the league agreed with his overall worldview. That this kind of stuff is only becoming news 10 years later is laughable as well.

Will the NFL reckon with their institutional principles that allowed Gruden to operate like that for this long? Absolutely not, which is why they best we’ll get from this scenario are some good jokes about Jon Gruden’s mind being as small and smooth as a pebble that’s been at the bottom of a river for over a million years.

So, learn from Gruden’s downfall. Racism, homophobia and misogyny is never a good look but if you feel that way then keep those dumb little thoughts in your dumb little head and remember, don’t put text into company communications channels that you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading aloud under oath in the Court of Law.

THOSE WMDs. Octopus farming is immoral, given what we know about this intelligent and solitary creature… I won a $5,000 Magic: The Gathering tournament on shrooms… A year after “Defund,” police get their money back… How some people live at the airport for months.