The NFL has been examining more than 650,000 emails, including the one sent by the Las Vegas Raiders coach, as part of a recent investigation. Gruden apologized for the comment.
On July 21, 2011, the National Football League and its players were working to resolve a lockout that threatened the upcoming season. That day, the league’s owners voted to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement—but the players opted not to vote on it immediately, citing outstanding issues that the union was fighting to resolve.
That same day, Jon Gruden—the current Las Vegas Raiders coach who has been one of the most prominent figures in the NFL over the past two decades—sent an email about DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, to a team executive. Gruden’s email described Smith with a racist trope common in anti-Black imagery.
