Nearly four years ago to the day, someone ran Jon Gruden out of a job. Gruden now has the NFL on the run.
After the NFL won a preliminary, three-judge ruling in the Nevada Supreme Court regarding the knee-jerk effort to divert any lawsuit against the league to the secret, rigged, kangaroo court of arbitration, Gruden persuaded the full seven-judge panel to take up the case. In August, they ruled in his favor.
Now, the seven justices of the Nevada Supreme Court have refused the NFL’s request for a rehearing. Which means that the league’s last resort will be to try to get the United States Supreme Court to take the case.
The NFL declined comment on Thursday, after the ruling was issued. Unless the NFL plans to make Gruden an offer he won’t refuse, the only option in the short term will be to throw a legal Hail Mary pass.
It’s a two-step process. First, the league has to get the Supreme Court to agree to take the case. Second, the league must persuade at least five justices of the Supreme Court to find in the NFL’s favor.
That’s where it gets tricky, with multiple levels of politics potentially influencing the outcome.
Generally speaking, the Supreme Court currently is composed of a six-justice conservative majority. The rulings by such judges tend to favor business interests. Which would point to the league getting its wish to keep Gruden’s case from playing out in open court. Currently, however, the broader conservative movement (as modified by the current administration) has issues with the NFL, thanks to the decision to tap Bad Bunny to be the halftime performer at Super Bowl LX. Throw in the commander-in-chief’s historical animosity toward the NFL, and some justices may be inclined, consciously or not, to view the league’s position dimly.
The potential ramifications are significant. If the Supreme Court takes the case and finds for Gruden, the NFL’s habit of steering as many lawsuits as possible into arbitration controlled by the Commissioner or his hand-picked designee could end, for good. If the Supreme Court takes the case and finds for the NFL, every other American business could emerge with a blueprint for having a secret, rigged, kangaroo court of their own.
It would be simple. Instead of forcing arbitration clauses onto prospective employees that would call for the case to be resolved by one of the various third-party arbitration services (which often has a subtle bias for the companies that send plenty of business their way), any/every American business can revise the boilerplate arbitration clause to call for the arbitration to be handled by the CEO or their hand-picked designee.
For now, the NFL must decide whether to roll the dice on the fairly slim chance of winning in the Supreme Court, which takes on very few of the total appeal petitions it receives, or to attempt to settle the case.
As to the possibility of settlement, remember this. In 2023, ESPN.com reported that Gruden intends “to burn the house down.” At best, it makes a settlement more costly. At worst, it points to Gruden refusing any and all offers the league will make, in the name of exposing the identity of the person(s) who weaponized a handful of messages from 650,000 supposedly confidential emails harvested by attorney Beth Wilkinson in her investigation of the Washington franchise and its former owner, Dan Snyder.
Setting aside the content of Gruden’s emails and whether Gruden eventually wins his case, anyone who cares about the NFL should want to know who undermined the integrity of the entire 2021 season by strategically and deliberately funneling Gruden’s emails to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in an effort to take out one of the NFL’s 32 head coaches.
Under interim coach Rich Bisaccia, the 2021 Raiders qualified for the playoffs and nearly beat the Bengals in the wild-card round. Cincinnati would go on to nearly win the Super Bowl.
How differently would the 2021 season have played out if whoever had decided to engineer Gruden’s ouster had waited until the season ended? For that reason alone, we all should want to know who ordered the proverbial Code Red on Gruden.
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