Raiders owner Mark Davis made final call on Jon Gruden working Bears game?

The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that Jon Gruden, head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders ahead of the weekend, used at least one racist trope in an email sent a decade ago that had been uncovered during the NFL’s well-documented investigation of the Washington Football Team. 

According to Chase Goodbread of the league’s website, the Raiders were made aware of additional emails sent by Gruden from 2010 through 2018 that included racist, misogynistic, and homophobic language ahead of the team’s game versus the Chicago Bears this past Sunday, a contest Las Vegas lost to drop to 3-2 on the season. 

Raiders general manager Mike Mayock spoke with reporters Wednesday and suggested owner Mark Davis made the final call to allow Gruden to coach against the Bears. Gruden ultimately resigned Monday night.

“I think the reality of that is that Mark Davis really is the one that was dealing with that and I think he felt like, and I don’t want to speak for Mark, but there was an awful lot of due diligence that had to go on on his side of this,” Mayock explained. “All that I knew was a bombshell had been dropped, the players talked about it, we talked about it with the players, Jon dealt with it and then of course I didn’t even know. … Again, Mark was dealing with all the email stuff. We were trying to prepare for a football game. When we came out of the game and the rest of it came out, I think Mark was already in the middle of his due diligence. I think he was trying to figure it all out, and again I know what the guy stands for and I think he was trying to do the right thing.” 

Mayock added that defensive end Carl Nassib, the league’s first and only openly gay player on an active roster, requested and was given a “personal day” off. Mayock also said he’s spoken with multiple Black players on the team about the Gruden situation. 

Mayock later had high praise for interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who was an assistant head coach and special teams coordinator at this time last week. It’s now on Bisaccia to get his players ready for a tough road matchup at the 3-2 Denver Broncos.