Commishgate. Is This the Beginning of the End for Roger Goodell?

This is a post about the NFL.

Yeah, I know, LinkedIn is a “business”-thingy.

I felt like sharing some thoughts on the whole Gruden/Goodell ordeal because it is THE most interesting sports story I’ve followed in a long time. The league that brought you Bountygate, Deflategate and Spygate now has Commishgate.

So, if your interested, or you just want to kill some time between Zoom-bombs, here are some thoughts.

I assume you know the following:

1.    Jon Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders a few weeks ago after several abhorrent emails he exchanged with his friend, Bruce Young, were leaked to the press. Some of the leaked emails were highly critical of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (or the Rog, as I like to call him).

2.    The leaked emails were part of 650,000 emails sent amongst employees of the Washington Football Team. They were released to the NFL as part of its investigation into the WFT on the heels of serious allegations that the organization treated women poorly. In years past when the league has investigated serious misconduct using outside investigators (as it did in this case), the investigator would issue a written report that was made public. In this case, the NFL did not allow a report to be issued, citing the desire to protect the confidentiality of the complainants.

3.    The NFL managed to keep nearly all of the 650,000 emails confidential. The only ones that made it public were ones that made Gruden look like a scumbag and ultimately caused him to resign. To be fair, 5 or 6 leaked out of 650,000. That’s, what, 99.9999% not leaked? I mean, should we hold the NFL to a standard of perfection?

Let’s get two things out of the way: 1. I don’t like the Rog. 2. I don’t like Jon Gruden. I’ve always thought he was a snake-oil salesman. Based on the leaks, it also looks like he’s still residing in the 1950’s Deep South. Definitely not somebody worth sympathy.

Having said all that, he just sued the Rog and the NFL. Even though I don’t think Gruden deserves a dime, he’s going to win a substantial settlement.

I read the 21-page Statement of Claim, filed in Nevada yesterday. The lawsuit is well written in plain language—I give praise for that. His lawyers essentially allege one of two things happened:

A.    As revenge for Gruden writing highly critical things about him, the Rog orchestrated a “Soviet-style character assassination” to force Gruden out; or

B.    The Rog was not involved. The leak was done by other NFL bad actors and the NFL was negligent in not supervising them properly. In other words, the NFL’s failure to properly supervise these bad actors allowed them to leak the emails and destroy Gruden’s career.

Here are some random, interesting things about the lawsuit.

1.    The Raiders are not named as a party.

2.    At the time he signed with the Raiders, Gruden negotiated a 10-year, $100 million contract. He got fired in year four, with, presumably, some $60+ million still on the table. That’s a lot of bread.

3.    Although the claim does not state how much Gruden has lost by being fired, it does say that Gruden lost the balance of his contract, “less offsets”. Given that the Raiders were not named as a party, coupled with the “offset” language, it leads me to strongly believe that the Raiders paid Gruden a substantial payout to go away. It would appear, however, that Gruden didn’t get the full balance of his contract and is looking for the NFL to make him whole for the unpaid balance of the $100 million, plus the loss of current/potential endorsements.

4.    Gruden has also claimed for punitive damages, which, if Nevada is anything like Ontario, are very difficult to obtain. Basically, the defendant’s conduct must be so egregious that it shocks the court’s conscious.

As far as I’m concerned, the NFL only has one defence to this lawsuit: We took reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of the 650,000 emails, but we were hacked by an outside party who stole the Gruden emails and leaked them to the press (i.e. it wasn’t done by an NFL employee).

Anyone buying that?

So, assume either the Rog orchestrated the whole tangle, or the NFL was negligent in protecting the confidentiality of the emails, allowing an unnamed NFL employee with an ax to grind to leak the Gruden emails.

Either way, big payday for Gruden.

Here are my questions:

A.    When does the lawsuit settle?

B.    Does this cost the Rog his job?

Here’s my assessment:

1.    If the lawsuit settles before discoveries, Gruden gets a huge payday, signs a non-disclosure agreement and the Rog keeps his job.

2.    If the lawsuit settles after discoveries (i.e. the NFL has to air its dirty laundry in public), Gruden still gets a huge payout, and the Rog is shown the door (maybe not immediately, but shortly thereafter). The Rog is 62. He’s been the Commissioner for 15 years. A year or so after the settlement, he will “retire”. The league will play up his exit as, you know, the Rog’s has done his job and earned his retirement. There will be hearty speeches and a farewell tour, but make no mistake, he’ll be leaving because of Gruden.

What makes one thing happen over the other? The Owners.

My feeling is there are four groups of Owners.

A.    Those who want the Rog fired (either for the Gruden mess or just years of dislike).

B.    Those who want to clean the league up and feel like this lawsuit might force some needed change.

We’ll group A and B together, followed by:

C.    The owners who love the Rog and want him to stay forever.

D.    The owners who don’t want the league’s dirty laundry aired in public.

I concede there could be some overlap in those groups but let us treat these as discrete groups.

If there are more owners in the A/B camp, than there are in the C/D camp, this process will go through discoveries, dirty laundry will be aired, and the Rog will ultimately be shown the door.

If there are more owners in the C/D camp, this will settle before the NFL has to air its dirty laundry, Gruden will get a huge payout to shut up, and the Rog will carry on as Commissioner.

The biggest factor in my mind? Did the Rog know/orchestrate the leak or was it done by other bad actors without the Rog’s knowledge?

It’s hard for me to imagine most of the Owners supporting the Rog if he did something as stupid as leaking emails to get revenge on Gruden. Maybe they don’t care, but I can’t see them lining up to support that kind of childish stupidity and lack of judgement. I would think that pushes a fair number of Owners who normally would’ve fallen squarely into the C/D camp (i.e. protecting the Rog and the league) into the A/B camp (i.e. knives out for the Commish).

If I had to guess, most Owners will fall into the C/D camp because…well…the NFL is a thriving business. Nobody wants the WFT debacle and a long, drawn out Commishgate to soil the brand.

Gruden’s lawyers will assume this too. It gives Gruden the early hammer. He can push hard for a big settlement knowing that most Owners will want this to go away quickly and quietly.  

The only other interesting question is, assume this goes to trial, would a judge award punitive damages? Remember, the threshold for punitive damages is very high (and always at the judge’s discretion).

If Gruden wins, but it’s determined the Rog did not orchestrate the leaks (i.e. Gruden wins on the negligence argument), no punitive damages.

If it turns out the Rog orchestrated the leaks, punitive damages are a strong possibility. The only mitigating factor is that Gruden is such a scumbag, the court might decline to grant punitive damages (even though they might be warranted if the plaintiff was more evolved).

I doubt it will ever go to trial, however. Sorry to all the trial lawyers out there, but trials are messy, damaging, time-consuming, expensive, soul-sucking affairs.

Here are my overall feelings:

A.    The Rog did not orchestrate the leaks (or even know about them). Come on, he can’t be that stupid and/or arrogant, can he? Can he????

B.    The leaks were committed by someone who either had a grudge against Gruden or was firing back at Gruden for the awful things he said about the Rog (i.e. one of the Rog’s capos took it upon himself to punish Gruden as a show of loyalty to the Goodell-father).

C.    The lawsuit will settle before discoveries with a huge, but undisclosed, payout to Gruden. The parties will sign non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreements and that will be the end of it.

D.    The Rog will go out on his own terms (i.e. he won’t be forced to “retire”).

E.    There will be one or more books written about the whole schmozzle.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.