The events that led to the resignation of Jon Gruden as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders were one of the most unbelievable things to happen in NFL history. It is something Gruden still views as unjust, and he is continuing to pursue legal action against the NFL.
The timing of the release of the e-mails that led to Gruden’s firing was very suspicious, to say the least. They were 10-year-old e-mails that were sent during Gruden’s time at ESPN as a color analyst. Who leaked them and why they did so remains an unresolved issue, and the former Raiders coach is not letting this go away.
In fact, a recent report stated that Gruden intends to ‘burn the house down’ of the NFL and that if he is successful in getting his lawsuit against the NFL to trial, they will ultimately be able to track down exactly who leaked the e-mails, via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk:
The real news, based on a careful consumption and digestion of the lengthy article, comes from the still-unresolved question of who leaked the Gruden emails — and from Gruden’s passionate pursuit of using the civil justice system in Nevada “to burn the house down.”
Gruden has insisted all along that the league office leaked the emails. If/when Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell proceeds beyond the question of whether Gruden must submit to the league’s secret, rigged, kangaroo court of arbitration ultimately controlled by Goodell, Gruden will have a chance to conduct discovery and track down the truth.
And, frankly, the discovery process surely will track down the truth. Unless the emails were sent to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times through burner phones and/or other entirely secret, untraceable mechanisms, an expert in digital forensics working for Gruden’s lawyers eventually will find the trail of electronic breadcrumbs that resulted in the emails being sent to the media.
This lawsuit could potentially expose a lot of things that the NFL and many high-ranking owners don’t want to get out to the public. Gruden believes the league leaked these e-mails themselves and if he can prove it, that could indeed burn the house down as he wants to do.
In all likelihood, this will be an extremely lengthy process that won’t be resolved for some time. But Gruden is not going down silently and will do everything in his power to find out the truth.
