A domino effect is a series of catastrophes or negative phenomena that occur in the form of a chain reaction. A chain that in the case of scandal that has led to Jon Gruden losing his position as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders (and a $ 100 million contract) began with the tangle of nonsense that was the Washington Redskins (the current Washington Football Team). Later he has taken several pieces along the way and has also been able to close the odd door that had recently been opened in the changing rooms of the NFL.
What started in high places did not end in Jon Gruden. Absolutely. The mess of chips continued much further and has reached some that, initially and on paper, were not part of the domino. The former Raiders coach has been the media scapegoat, but the collateral damage of his scandal has affected at different levels, even reaching the locker room of his team. But let’s go by parts and so we can understand how a small snowball can end up wiping out everything as it gets bigger.
It all started with an investigation into the Washington Football Team by the leak of some photos of various cheerleaders /dancers/ cheerleading team in undergarments. Some images that had been sent between members of the coaching staff via email. The The New York Times He was pulling the thread and, unwittingly, he came across some emails from Jon Gruden with racist and homophobic terms everywhere. In other words, the New York media found a few lumps in a quagmire that is already important and put the cartridge away.
In a 2010 email exchange with Bruce Allen, then-Redskins head coach, Gruden challenged women’s ability to umpire in the NFL, dropped pearls by ridiculing gays, used racist terms, and shared photos of cheerleaders topless. After analyzing more than 650,000 emails and interviewing more than 100 witnesses and those involved, the League took action and fined Washington as a whole $ 10 million. Gruden went out of his way, but in 2020 the The Washington Post was in charge of removing the ‘mud’.
The media of the American capital interviewed several workers of the Washington Football Team and published statements in which they denounced abuse, bullying and sexual harassment in the work environment of the franchise. After the report was published, several of those employees were fired, others resigned from their jobs and the rest went to the background within the organization. If we add to this that the scandal continued to surround the team, coming to light bad practices and defamations by the owner and all the racial riot with Colin Kaepernick as the protagonist … the The New York Times he found more than enough reasons to enter the scene and start moving his strings thanks to that cartridge we talked about earlier.
To the already mentioned result of Gruden losing his job was added another particular domino effect in which the behavior of the former coach painted the faces of many people. The Tampa Bay BuccaneersEmbarrassed, they removed the coach from their history books, which featured him as a member of the team that won the franchise’s first NFL title. The sports shoe brand Skechers, also embarrassed, she terminated her contract with him and publicly condemned Gruden’s behavior, even going so far as to indirectly apologize to her clients, mostly humiliated in the comments aired by the Times. A series of third-party injuries that also reached the Raiders locker room, where Gruden’s hidden face hit harder than anywhere.
Carl Nassib jumped into the media a few months ago, when he became the First active professional football player to come out of the closet and speak openly about being gay. The Raiders player knocked down, with a bang, a huge barrier and was shown to the world without filters. He was probably not the only player in that situation in the entire NFL, but he was the first. Normal that he went into an emotional spin when he learned of the thought of who was his coach until a few days ago. So much so that the general manager The team informed the media that the defensive end had received permission from the franchise to take a day off. “He asked me for the day off. He told me that he had a lot to process. Many things have happened and, of course, we support your request and respect you “, explicó Mike Mayock.
Among all those things to process, it would not be surprising if Nassib’s mind passed the fact that now more than one will think to follow in his footsteps and make the NFL an open and plural league, in which sexual condition or race have no more value than performance on the pitch. In which the work is not distorted by the glass through which a coach looks who may think that you are inferior because of his skin color or your tastes. A league in which the changing rooms can become more airtight in case Gruden’s case, like Nassib’s, is not the only one within a changing room.
VIDEO | Carl Nassib is the first active NFL player to come out as gay
