Not sure what you mean when you say Gruden's views, as expressed in his emails, are "indefensible." Is it because he used some naughty words? I'd say his characterization of Goodell is perfectly defensible, if inelegantly phrased. Maybe he should have called Goodell a "lying, sanctimonious poltroon", or some such.
Jake I mean "indefensible" from the point of view of the Raiders. They cannot have an employee with those private views (these were from Gruden's private email remember) as a public face of the organization. That would have been untenable - which is what the league office was counting on in my opinion.
Also, you asked a very important question here: "It was also reported that Gruden had a number of emails disparaging some current NFL owners. Wonder why details of those emails weren't disclosed?" Media bias is not just about what they choose to report. Often of far greater impact is what they choose NOT to report. A year ago, the media made a concerted effort to ensure the electorate was ignorant of Joe Biden's involvement in his son's corrupt schemes. Who are they protecting now?
Fully agree that both the sender and the recipient of the emails are done working in the NFL in any capacity.
I think the league will find that the leak will be a problem long after Gruden is mostly forgotten. The obvious future problem from the leak is, as you said, the other 650,000 emails. We already have one sent by Adam Schefter that leaked out today. Will they trickle out like Chinese water torture? When the furor over Gruden dies down someone will start to ask about the rest of the Redskin investigation. Snyder has run the organization so haphazardly, I have to assume the league has actionable information. Why has no action been taken (I dismiss a fine as serious action when talking about a billionaire). The bigger problem is, how does the leak impact willingness of franchises to cooperate with future investigations? The NFL has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to maintain control of privileged information. The Redskins gave the league unprecedented access to all past communications. Does Goodell face a revolt at the next owner's meeting? His office's power to investigate and punish teams may be reviewed.
Not sure what you mean when you say Gruden's views, as expressed in his emails, are "indefensible." Is it because he used some naughty words? I'd say his characterization of Goodell is perfectly defensible, if inelegantly phrased. Maybe he should have called Goodell a "lying, sanctimonious poltroon", or some such.
Jake I mean "indefensible" from the point of view of the Raiders. They cannot have an employee with those private views (these were from Gruden's private email remember) as a public face of the organization. That would have been untenable - which is what the league office was counting on in my opinion.
Also, you asked a very important question here: "It was also reported that Gruden had a number of emails disparaging some current NFL owners. Wonder why details of those emails weren't disclosed?" Media bias is not just about what they choose to report. Often of far greater impact is what they choose NOT to report. A year ago, the media made a concerted effort to ensure the electorate was ignorant of Joe Biden's involvement in his son's corrupt schemes. Who are they protecting now?
Fully agree that both the sender and the recipient of the emails are done working in the NFL in any capacity.
I think the league will find that the leak will be a problem long after Gruden is mostly forgotten. The obvious future problem from the leak is, as you said, the other 650,000 emails. We already have one sent by Adam Schefter that leaked out today. Will they trickle out like Chinese water torture? When the furor over Gruden dies down someone will start to ask about the rest of the Redskin investigation. Snyder has run the organization so haphazardly, I have to assume the league has actionable information. Why has no action been taken (I dismiss a fine as serious action when talking about a billionaire). The bigger problem is, how does the leak impact willingness of franchises to cooperate with future investigations? The NFL has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to maintain control of privileged information. The Redskins gave the league unprecedented access to all past communications. Does Goodell face a revolt at the next owner's meeting? His office's power to investigate and punish teams may be reviewed.
I would expect the next collective bargaining with the union to also be very interesting in regards to the Commissioner's powers.