NFL players care a lot less about things than the media.
None of the Jags players cared about Urban Meyer grinding on a blonde. They thought it was hilarious. If anything, they might have been worried about Urban’s commitment to the team and his ability to lead through a tough time, but the actual act of him going to a bar and dancing with someone, not his wife, wasn’t a concern there.
A black Raiders player hugged Jon Gruden and asked how he could help after the Michelin Man Lips emails came out, so it isn’t surprising when the team was asked as a whole what they thought about the emails, the consensus was this.
“I’ve been around this guy for three years now; I’ve never felt a certain type of way about him,” Raiders running back Josh Jacobs said of Gruden, who drafted him in the first round out of Alabama in 2019.
“He’s never rubbed me a certain way, that type of way. I mean, what he said is what he said at the end of the day too. But I mean, I definitely trust him. I mean, it was 10 years ago. People grow.”
Raiders linebacker Denzel Perryman, who joined the Raiders in a Sept. 1 trade with the Carolina Panthers, said Sunday, “I let it go as soon as we walked out of the meeting room. I wasn’t focused on that. Still not focused on it. So, I mean, I don’t know what he said. I could care less, honestly. I don’t know how many years ago it was, but my main focus this week was on the Bears, not whatever he had going on.”
“Us as a team, we’re like, ‘Yeah, Coach, it was 10 years ago. We love you, man. We got your back,'” Carr said. “We’re just trying to be there to support Coach. I know it’s a hard time for him. … He told us, ‘Men, learn from my mistake.’ When we left that meeting, we didn’t take it as how it came out.”
The NFL hasn’t contacted Gruden yet, but there are some complications.
When Gruden sent these emails, he wasn’t a part of the NFL. He was working for ESPN. The question begs can you punish someone for sending a personal email when the league didn’t employ them at the time. Furthermore, the emails leaked in a discovery process that has nothing to do with Gruden but a Washington Football Team sexual harassment lawsuit.
The Raiders were COOKED by the Bears at home, so maybe it affected them a little bit, who knows.
Flip the page for Gruden, apologizing again.