Other EmailGate

[Exe Gesis]

It’s time for NFL to release all information from the Washington Football Team investigation

Posted by Mike Florio on October 12, 2021, 10:17 AM EDT

The NFL possesses a trove of 650,000 emails that previously were entirely hidden. The NFL has peeled off a small handful of those communications, for one or more specific purposes.

As a result, the NFL has opened the door to having all of the emails released.

In July, the NFL managed to announce the outcome of the Washington Football Team investigation without providing any transparency as to its findings. By adroitly tucking the ruling into the afternoon hours of Thursday, July 1 — at a time when most folks were sliding into a four-day July 4 weekend — the stunning failure to disclose details and to even commission a written report from the lawyer who investigated the situation in Washington went barely criticized and hardly noticed.

That has now changed, dramatically.
Whether to help NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith in the vote that determined his future on the job or to end the employment of Jon Gruden, the league selectively culled from the 650,000 emails a tiny subset of messages sent by someone who wasn’t even working for the organization at the time, or any other NFL team for that matter.

Does the league want us to regard Gruden as an outlier? Maybe. Or maybe the truth is that the league simply doesn’t want us to see how deep and dark and dirty the rabbit hole is. Gruden’s penpal, Bruce Allen, exchanged emails with plenty of people. Surely, he and Washington owner Daniel Snyder exchanged emails and text messages. Where are those?

This isn’t some fringe theory. More and more fans (and in turn, more and more media) are asking the questions that should have been asked in July. Why are the specific things that Snyder allegedly said or did being concealed?

As we wrote at the time, the league protected Snyder because that in turn protected other owners from finding themselves in a similar predicament, with scorched-earth reviews of business practices sparked by, potentially, false or embellished allegations (or, perhaps more accurately, credible allegations that they dismissed as false or embellished). No one wants to be audited, even if they haven’t cheated on their taxes. The WFT investigation amounted to an audit of the organization. By hiding the outcome of that audit, other owners could take some solace in the fact that, if they’re ever audited, the results will end up in an underground sarcophagus for a thousand years or longer.

That’s what would have happened, if the NFL hadn’t dipped into the WFT sarcophagus to selectively harvest and leak the Gruden emails. Now that the NFL has opened the door, others are insisting that other emails be released.

The fair and proper thing to do would be to release the full contents of the investigation. At a basic minimum, all of Allen’s emails should be released, including communications with employees of other teams and/or the league office. At a bare minimum, Allen’s email exchanges with Snyder should be disclosed.

Any other outcome is unacceptable. Any other outcome amounts to hypocrisy of the highest degree. Any other outcome makes the league complicit in any misconduct reflected in those emails, because the NFL continues to actively cover it up — the same way the NFL covered up the Gruden emails until the NFL realized that releasing them had one or more strategic benefits.

 

[Exe Gesis]

NFLPA plans to petition NFL to release the rest of the WFT emails

Posted by Mike Florio on October 12, 2021, 2:53 PM EDT

In July, the NFL managed to conclude the Washington Football Team investigation and to conceal the specific results of it. Now, many have begun pushing for transparency in the WFT situation.

The events surrounding the resignation of Raiders coach Jon Gruden, sparked by the selective leaking of emails he sent to former Washington president Bruce Allen, have sparked a growing outcry for more (any) transparency on the question of the WFT investigation. The NFL Players Association has joined in that chorus.

“We have had communications with the league, and the NFLPA plans to request that the NFL release the rest of the emails,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith told Mike Jones of USA Today.

An NFL spokesperson told Jones that the league has “no current plans” to release the emails because “confidentiality was an element of the investigation into the Washington Football Team and workplace review.”

That’s fine. But why did the Gruden emails get out? The confidentiality already has failed, via the leaks to both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. It’s a little too late to cite confidentiality, after the NFL already deliberately waived it when handing specific emails to two major media outlets.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Plenty of people are nervous about the Bruce Allen emails

Posted by Mike Florio on October 12, 2021, 1:54 PM EDT

Many have said in the aftermath of Jon Gruden’s resignation that folks around the NFL are scrubbing their emails today. For some around the league, no amount of scrubbing will make a difference.

For those people, the damage is already done. For those people, the emails they sent to or received from former Washington executive Bruce Allen have become part of the 650,000 trove of documents that have been, but for a handful of Gruden emails, buried under a hundred yards of reinforced concrete.

The people who know Bruce Allen and who communicated with him during his time in Washington are nervous about what’s in there. About who else sent or received emails with racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or misogynistic content. About whether they will be exposed, the same way Gruden was.

The right and fair outcome continues to be simple — release all of the Allen emails. Hell, release all 650,000 emails for full scrutiny. Selectively leaking (and the NFL definitely leaked selectively) the Gruden emails and then treating the rest of the emails like radioactive waste isn’t nearly good enough. Especially since, without current transparency, the NFL can simply dip into the cache of documents whenever it may choose in order to take action against someone who, for whatever reason, has landed on the NFL’s list of enemies or targets.

Look at what they did to Gruden. Leak one document, send “other materials” to the Raiders, and wait. Knowing what else was out there, Gruden foolishly (or stubbornly) didn’t quit. Knowing what else was out there, owner Mark Davis foolishly (or stubbornly) didn’t fire Gruden. So then the league leaked other documents, with the clear impression being that, if Gruden isn’t gone, still others will be leaked.

Others can find themselves in a similar predicament. Others may be approached about emails that haven’t yet been leaked, but with a request/suggestion that they quietly resign or retire or whatever now, or the emails will surface.

These emails become a powerful weapon, made even more powerful if they land in the wrong hands. The selective leaking of the emails proves that they’re already in the wrong hands. The only right thing to do, then, is to shine the light now. That brings out the truth, and it prevents the league from using the threat of disclosing the truth to manipulate others into doing whatever the league may want.

I know that’s a strong allegation. But, based on Gruden’s resignation and the circumstances surrounding it, it’s fair to conclude that the league already has done it once. If the emails aren’t released, nothing stops the league from doing it again.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Protecting the owners. Good point at the end, Jones would have skeletons in emails with Snyder, when Jones was angry with Goodell in 2017, led a push to have him removed.


Jerry Jones declines to comment on whether Jon Gruden should have lost his job

Posted by Mike Florio on October 12, 2021, 11:05 AM EDT

Every Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones talks about the happenings with his team and the league during a segment on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. This Tuesday, Jones was asked about the events leading to the resignation of Raiders coach Jon Gruden.

Jones, who usually has something to say about anything and everything, had not a whole lot to say about Gruden.

“I know these people,” Jones said, via Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News. “I know everybody that you’ve been reading about. They’re outstanding proponents of our game. They have represented this game in many cases beautifully. And certainly, we will continue to recognize what a spotlight you’re in and the way that we should express ourselves. All of that comes to my mind.”
Jones also was asked whether Gruden deserved to lose his job.

“I don’t have anything I want to express there, one way or the other,” Jones said. “From the standpoint of contribution, I know that we are all accountable to even a, if you will, a fleeting or minor part of our actions. We are all accountable to those. But that’s about all I want to comment on it. We are talking about people here and even the ones that some of the comments were directed about. Those have been outstanding people in the NFL.”

It’s surprising that Jones didn’t have more to say. Given the strong condemnation that the NFL issued on Friday regarding Gruden’s email regarding NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, it would be perfectly acceptable for Jones to make similar remarks.
But Jones possibly is protecting the broader Football Industrial Complex, where an attack on one is an attack on all.

And let’s be fully candid about it. Jones at some level has to be concerned about his 32 years in the NFL. The things he may have said. The things he may have done. The things that could come back to haunt him, especially if the NFL does the right thing and releases the full body of evidence developed during the Washington Football Team investigation.

Until we see all of the evidence, we don’t know and won’t know whether, for example, Jones and former Washington executive Bruce Allen exchanged emails. Or, for that matter, Jones and Snyder.

Indeed, when Jones was on a crusade to take down Commissioner Roger Goodell in 2017, Snyder was the only other owner who actively supported him. If it’s fair game to reveal things Gruden said to Allen about Goodell and others, it’s unfair and hypocritical to hide things that others in positions of power and influence said and did, to Allen or to anyone else with the Washington Football Team.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Get'em Mike.

 

[Chism]

Surely it is just easier if Roger the dictator walks. No one likes him and the more he digs the more evidence he is going to get especially around the time of the lock out.

He is the most disliked NFL commish in the history of the game IMO.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Goodell disgusts me, turning me off the game. So many hypocritical and dodgy decisions in his tenure.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Its a lot of the other owners too, not just Goodell, they are vindictive hypocrites.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

I stopped following the NBA coz of the politics, might give up following the NFL too.

 

[J Shuttlesworth]

Will be pretty clear that Gruden is the sacrifical lamb if he is the only one to go during this.

No way there isn't similar level 'communications' from others.

 

[manureid]

Would be good if some media outlets asked why it was just Gruden emails leaked. Seems so convenient right after he called ol Rog names that suddenly a day later all the emails come out. Where is the leak? Why out of 650 thousand emails is it just the Gruden ones? We know it was a hit job to get rid of him, but lets see some proper investigative journalism on why that happened, and not just running with the s**t you have been spoon fed.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

God TV shows like FT and Undisputed make me sick, not one of them asking the question Florio is, just patting the nfl on the back for doing the right thing, laughable, why didn't they release these emails and do the right thing 10 years before now? ... how ******* dumb would you have to be, it has literally nothing to do with the NFL doing the right thing

 

[Exe Gesis]

Hurry up and arrive XFL

 

[manureid]

God TV shows like FT and Undisputed make me sick, not one of them asking the question Florio is, just patting the nfl on the back for doing the right thing, laughable, why didn't they release these emails and do the right thing 10 years before now? ... how ******* dumb would you have to be, it has literally nothing to do with the NFL doing the right thing

MeShawn has been almost unbearable in his smugness over this. Has a massive axe to grind against Gruden so is loving every minute, even trying to claim he does not have an axe to grind. Gruden got you a ring, even though most of the team wanted him out because he was such a diva.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Shows people want their money/job/standing that much theyll be ok becoming mouthpieces for the tyrant, hypocrisy can take a nap

 

[Constantgin]

Goodell disgusts me, turning me off the game. So many hypocritical and dodgy decisions in his tenure.

I stopped following the NBA coz of the politics, might give up following the NFL too.

I am the same i am pretty sick over this. The Fact the nfl leaked the info that ruined someone's life just to get rid of him makes me sick no matter what he said in confidential emails. The fact they are still cover for Snyder just makes it worse.
Won't be spending any money on nfl from now on and this will be last year i bother with gamepass.

 

[aussiedude]

Surely it is just easier if Roger the dictator walks. No one likes him and the more he digs the more evidence he is going to get especially around the time of the lock out.

He is the most disliked NFL commish in the history of the game IMO.

Roger doesnt work for us as fans, He works for the owners. and has made them more money. And has got such a profile that the NFLPA's Demaurice Smith keeps trying to pick fights with the Commish rather than owners, which leads to the owners getting even more of what they want in the last couple of CBA's

 

[aussiedude]

I am the same i am pretty sick over this. The Fact the nfl leaked the info that ruined someone's life just to get rid of him makes me sick no matter what he said in confidential emails. The fact they are still cover for Snyder just makes it worse.
Won't be spending any money on nfl from now on and this will be last year i bother with gamepass.

They still cover for Snyder because he is an owner, and has dirt on the other owners.

Going against an owner is basically the nuclear option. its mutually assured destruction. because if he goes, a couple will follow. You think Jerry Jones is clear, Hell Bob Craft got off [phrasing] the rub n tug stuff. and Bob McNair died a racist PoS who's players hated him. The NFL were shocked that Jerry Richardson was forced out for his sexual harassment.

 

[manureid]

Really, the bigger an organisation becomes, the more corrupt it becomes. The NFL is a prime example of this.

 

[aussiedude]

as long as you have the hush money, the power and lawyers you can get away with just about anything.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Snyder with dirt on everyone is probably the thing

 

[aussiedude]

Long gone are the days where the NFL actively blocks someone from buying/owning a team. like they did with Trump.

Not that Trump could afford a NFL team anymore, at best a XFL/Arena football team

 

[drd23]

Probably most relevant to post here given the tweet relates to the contents of one of these emails

 

[Chewy316]

God TV shows like FT and Undisputed make me sick, not one of them asking the question Florio is, just patting the nfl on the back for doing the right thing, laughable, why didn't they release these emails and do the right thing 10 years before now? ... how ******* dumb would you have to be, it has literally nothing to do with the NFL doing the right thing

Stephen A Smith only a few weeks ago said that Shohei Ohtani couldn't be the face of the MLB because he was Asian. And yet he chooses to take the "moral high ground" on this situation.

ESPN are s**t canning Gruden led by guys like Stephen A Smith, but let's not forget who Gruden was employed with for the entire duration that these emails were sent.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Hes a pariah now, so everyone "has to" distance themselves, also to remain employed. But theyve really screwed Gruden over forever, smeared as a vile human with "ist" issues. No ring of honor, maybe never HoF, etc.

But as stated before by all, its disgusting he should be isolated here, whilst many coaches past and current, and many owners, are guilty of the same and worse things.