Jon Gruden wins two early legal battles vs NFL | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Senior NFL Writer Charles Robinson and Yahoo Sports’ Columnist Shalise Manza Young discuss a judge denying the NFL’s motion to dismiss Jon Gruden lawsuit over leaked emails. What does this mean for Gruden, the NFL and Roger Goodell? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Raiders were in the news again earlier, actually, in the day because Jon Gruden made an appearance in district courts in Nevada. And the NFL was essentially-- had two motions that were heard today-- one for-- basically a request to push Jon Gruden's lawsuit into NFL arbitration, so-- which would have been basically private court, the little NFL court with Roger being the arbitrator effectively, and then a push for an outright dismissal.
So first up it was arbitration, because the NFL basically was like, look, if it gets pushed into arbitration, cool. We don't got to worry about it anymore. But if it doesn't get pushed into arbitration, we want it dismissed out of this court. Well, a judge heard basically arguments, oral arguments from both sides, went through hundreds of pages of submissions prior to today occurring, and the NFL took two Ls-- 0 for 2.
It's going to remain in Nevada court. And the judge also declined to dismiss it. So what that means for the NFL is-- and they are going to appeal this, by the way. League said they are absolutely appealing the decision, which, of course, you would expect. That means, if this moves forward in the standard that it normally would in this district court, you're going to go through a trial process of depositions. You're going to go through a trial process of discovery.
It's going to have hallmarks of Stan Kroenke and St. Louis. Everybody's going to start digging in every direction to see what exactly happened. I don't know how people feel about whether this should be a W for Jon Gruden or not. He hasn't denied the content of what we're racist, homophobic, and misogynistic emails, but this unfolding does have a chance to give us a peek into what the hell is going on with Washington, and how--
SHALISE MANZA YOUNG: Mm-hmm.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --just this little select couple emails out of 650,000 weaseled their way out, and why the NFL might be protecting the rest-- because I'm telling you right now, I think this lawsuit, if Gruden could get there, would be totally happy nuking everybody on the way out. I think Gruden's sitting there going, you know what, I'm done. Everybody knows. There's no there's no getting out from under this, so I'm more than happy to take Roger and anybody else in the league office with me for protecting whoever they're protecting and deciding to frag me.
SHALISE MANZA YOUNG: That would be the only positive thing that comes out of it. I know there are a lot of women who used to work for the Washington Football Team who would be thrilled for more information to come out about what they endured while they were working for that team, because Roger Goodell made the decision, as we've discussed many times, to hide it.
There is no written report from Beth Wilkinson's team through hundreds of interviews and 650,000 emails they didn't have to produce a written report on what exactly was found, which remains disgusting and should be embarrassing to the NFL, but is not. And if something like this gets that to light, I'm sure Jon Gruden really doesn't care what happened to those women based on what was in those emails that he wrote.
But if that ends up coming-- a little more ends up coming to light, that's not a bad thing. While we're on the topic of emails, it's interesting how those ones with Jeff Pash just sort of disappeared, and we never-- those popped up and then went away, interestingly enough.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.
SHALISE MANZA YOUNG: But Jeff Pash is-- kind of runs the NFL more than Roger Goodell does in some ways, so maybe not a surprise that his involvement just was swept under the rug.
CHARLES ROBINSON: He's lead counsel for the NFL, by the way, for those who are listening. He's the top lawyer for the NFL-- the tip of the sword, as they would say, legally. Yeah, look it's-- I don't think anybody here is any-- there's any winners, whichever side--
SHALISE MANZA YOUNG: No.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --quote, unquote, "wins." If the NFL wins, does it really win? If Gruden wins-- I don't have a great opinion of him, so--
SHALISE MANZA YOUNG: There's not really somebody I'm rooting for in this thing, really.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right. You root for two people-- or two sides that seem to have it coming bloodying each other up enough and revealing enough about everybody else, some-- maybe some of the systemic things that go on, maybe some of those more-- some more of those emails. Maybe there's some tea about Dan Snyder in there, which I have no doubt. Who knows what else could come out in this thing? And I think that's really what everybody should be rooting for.
