The N.F.L. will try really hard to keep all these emails from leaking because, frankly, it will reveal things that we already know about the league and the others.
All the things that they say externally about racism and being open to other communities and sexualities they don’t really mean that, and their internal communications prove that. I know people are up in arms about this stuff, but not me because I knew it has always been happening for years.
The emails just confirm what people with any common sense already knew.
N.Y. Times dropped a few more from the N.F.L.’s top lawyer Jeff Pash.
Pash sympathized with Allen’s frustration over the 2016 hiring of Jocelyn Moore, who became the league’s chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill after working for several Democratic senators and later became the first Black woman to be the league’s top spokesperson.
“Curious — is there a rule against hiring Libertarians, Independents or even a Republican?” Allen asked.
“No,” Pash replied, “but it can sometimes look that way!”
Referring to a rule that requires N.F.L. teams to interview minority candidates for coaching and executive jobs, Allen said, “We have the Rooney rule …. So I’m going to propose a Lincoln Rule at the next meeting.”
That is a slave joke if I am not mistaken.
Very funny stuff from Allen.
Pash added: “We may not see this the same way. But that does not change my respect or affection for you. After all, nobody else has ever given me a Hooters V.I.P. card.”
A few years later, Pash wrote to Allen asking to speak. “Please give me a few minutes — I’m trying to lower a player’s salary at the moment,” Allen responded. Pash wrote back, “The Lord’s work.”
Pash and Allen, as his team spun in and out of crises, joked about the league’s diversity initiatives.
When Allen shared an audio file of a team song aimed at attracting Latino fans, Pash responded, “I am not sure this song will be as popular after the wall gets built.”
These sound like lovely guys.
If you think they are the only N.F.L. and team executives who talked like this, you are very naive. This is common practice in the N.F.L., which is why they don’t want the other emails to get it.
We will see if they succeed in suppressing the rest.
Flip the page for more emails from Pash and Allen.