Jon Gruden sat in the “Monday Night Football” broadcast booth in December 2011 and watched as Atlanta linebacker Curtis Lofton laid a helmet-to-helmet blow on New Orleans receiver Marques Colston.
The play was flagged for unnecessary roughness, a call that Gruden did not agree with.
“I just don’t understand how games are being officiated,” Gruden said to a national TV audience.
The league callout made its way to the Park Avenue headquarters, where Gruden was summoned for a lesson on player safety, a plan spearheaded by NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell.
According to ESPN, Gruden said that Goodell was treating him like a “stooge” who had “never coached in the league, like I don’t study football day in and day out … like I didn’t know a damn thing about player safety.”
When Gruden was hired as the head coach of the Raiders for the first time in 1998 by then-owner Al Davis, a “hate the NFL office” sentiment was instilled in him by the franchise even before Goodell took charge eight years later.
Davis believed the league officials played favorites, suing them for antitrust violations as he was convinced commissioner Pete Rozelle killed a 1983 trade prior to the draft that would’ve landed John Elway in Las Vegas.
As he earned his stripes at the helm of the Raiders, Gruden had his own experiences with Goodell that ticked him off.
For one, in 2020, the NFL threw a $500,000 fine at the Raiders and $150,000 at Gruden personally for COVID-19 violations while stripping the squad of a sixth-round draft pick.
The biggest of all, though, is Gruden reportedly believes Goodell is partially responsible for the email leak scandal that forced the former head coach to step down from his post with the Raiders in October 2021.
While launching an investigation into Commanders owner Dan Snyder for toxic workplace culture within the organization, Snyder’s legal team reportedly collected damning emails and texts from top league executives.
When the investigation was done, an estimated 650,000 Commanders emails were turned over to the league, including Gruden’s now infamous exchange with Washington’s general manager Bruce Allen from ten years prior where he described NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith using a racist trope.
Gruden, and other league sources, believe both Goodell and Snyder had a hand in leaking the emails, trying to protect the Commanders boss while taking down a league antagonist.
“Why would these people want to come and get me?” Gruden said, according to ESPN.
The reason, Gruden said, was that he had a quiet crusade of “f–k Roger Goodell. And I’m not the only one, by the way. … Deep down, I knew he — Goodell — had me by the balls.”
