NFLPA Director DeMaurice Smith Fears Teams are Making Race Based Decisions After Seeing Jon Gruden Emails
After being the subject of a racial trope by disgraced head coach Jon Gruden, NFL Players Association Director DeMaurice Smith wonders if the leaked email signals a larger issue within the league.
Smith joined ESPN’s The Right Time podcast hosted by Bomani Jones and discussed the bombshell scandal to hit the NFL, after leaked emails showed racist, sexist, and homophobic comments from Gruden.
The NFLPA director was the target of Gruden’s “Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires,” email that he sent to the Washington Football Team while a member of ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth in 2011.
“My only frame was, wow they seem to be really comfortable talking about this on email,” Smith said of his initial takeaway. “It’s a gross caricature that you and I would have expected from the 50s maybe, or the 60s.”
Gruden’s messages were leaked after the league reviewed more than 650,000 emails as part of its investigation into an alleged toxic workplace culture created by the Washington Football Team franchise and its owner Daniel Snyder. Smith wonders what other information is in those 650,000 emails and whether it shows executives are making team decisions based on a race.
“What I’m interested in is, is there correspondence that suggests teams are making decisions about coaches based on the color of their skin?” Smith said to Jones. “Are they actively hostile to players who have chosen to self-identify in various ways? Are they denigrating of people based on sexual preference or religious identity?”
The NFLPA director stated he’s less interested in learning about the Washington Football Team directly, despite them being the subject of the initial investigation, and more focused on the league as a whole.
“We’ve talked about diversity,” Smith said of the league and its union. “We’ve talked about inclusiveness for years. How do we turn the corner and actually match our actions to our words? And when will we start to hold people accountable for living up to a standard that we believe is the acceptable standard for just human interaction?”
Asked by Jones if there are any legal grounds for requiring the NFL to release the rest of its findings on the investigation, Smith replied it’s just a request.
Watch above via ESPN
