The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whom he coached to a Super Bowl win, have removed him from their Ring of Honor, and a shoe company no longer wants his endorsement.
The damage to Jon Gruden’s legacy has radiated beyond the loss of his job as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders and the widespread denunciation of comments that were homophobic, misogynistic and racist. The revelation that Gruden denigrated people around the N.F.L. has tarnished long-held relationships, quashed a sponsorship deal and plunged him into disrepute with the organization he delivered a Super Bowl title. Gruden has not spoken publicly since his statement announcing his resignation on Monday night, hours after The New York Times reported that N.F.L. officials had discovered, amid a workplace misconduct investigation into the Washington Football Team that did not directly involve him, that he had casually and regularly disparaged people throughout the league in bigoted terms. That report came three days after The Wall Street Journal first reported Gruden had sent a message in which he denigrated DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association, who is Black, with a racist trope. The N.F.L.P.A. and the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which is dedicated to improving diversity in the N.F.L., condemned Gruden’s remarks, unlike the Raiders, who in their statement Monday night merely said that owner Mark Davis had accepted his resignation. On Wednesday, General Manager Mike Mayock emphasized to reporters that Davis’s late father, Al Davis, had employed, at various times, the league’s highest-ranking woman, Amy Trask; the first African American coach in the modern era, Art Shell; and one of the league’s first Hispanic coaches, Tom Flores. Mark Davis told ESPN on Wednesday that he had no comment on Gruden’s departure. Then, perhaps suggesting his displeasure that these previously confidential emails had cost him his coach, Davis said, “Ask the N.
