Jon Gruden's email leaks led to Dan Snyder's exit from the NFL

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Jon Gruden lost his job as Raiders head coach two years ago, but ultimately the leaked emails that forced his ouster also set up Dan Snyder’s eventual exit from the league.

NFL owners will be voting July 20 on whether to accept Josh Harris as the new owner of the Commanders. ESPN reported that you can trace Snyder’s ouster in 2023 to what transpired across the country in 2021. Sources have indicated to ESPN that Dan Snyder leaked the emails that caused Jon Gruden’s termination in Las Vegas. That’s because it ultimately led to more attention on Snyder’s situation in Washington.

First, let’s set the scene of what was happening in the fall of 2021. The Wall Street Journal broke a story about an email Gruden sent to Washington GM Bruce Allen a decade before. At the time, Gruden was part of the Monday Night Football broadcast team. In the email to Allen, Gruden called NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith “Dumboriss. And he also used a racist trope to describe Smith.

Days later, the New York Times reported on the existence of more emails from Gruden to Allen. In the latest leaked batch, Gruden criticized NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Gruden called Goodell “clueless” and anti-football. Some of the language Gruden used in the emails also could be viewed as anti-gay and misogynistic. Gruden resigned that night. He later filed a lawsuit against the NFL that alleged Goodell leaked the emails to the media to harm Gruden’s reputation.

Sources told ESPN that Washington owner Dan Snyder engineered the leak of Jon Gruden’s emails. Gruden lost his job with the Raiders. And now Snyder is about to lose his team as the Commanders ownership passes on to Josh Gordon. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

But sources told ESPN that it was Dan Snyder who leaked the Jon Gruden emails to take the attention away from him. The NFL’s investigation into Snyder was finding evidence of a toxic workplace in the Washington team office. Sources told ESPN that Snyder also wanted to serve up Gruden in order to get in Goodell’s better graces.

However, no one knows for sure who leaked the emails in 2021. But shortly after their release, a Congressional committee began investigating Snyder. Eventually, the feds began looking to see whether Snyder committed financial crimes. ESPN said Snyder told those close to him that he’d collected damaging information he could use against Goodell and fellow NFL owners. Last fall, the owners started to publicly push Snyder out of the league.

“He was free and clear that October,” a source told ESPN in regards Snyder’s situation in 2021. “He just had to wait out his suspension and let everything blow over. A major miscalculation. Without the leaks, he might just have survived.”