Las Vegas Raiders owners Mark Davis is paying a lot of his former coaches some serious money not to coach his team, but at least one is trying to get the NFL to do the same. According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the lawyers for former Raiders coach Jon Gruden filed report that his losses after being fired back in 2021 “total well over $150,000,000.”
The document that contained this number is called a Case Conference Report, and it was filed two days ago. According to the report, the damages flow from “loss of his employment, interference with future employment opportunities, loss of contract value, loss of sponsorships, reputational damage, costs, expert fees, and attorney fees incurred as a result of this dispute.”
The numbers isn’t totally outrageous, but this is one of those lawsuits where no one wins, other than the lawyers for both parties, especially as it continues to get dragged out.
Gruden filed the suit approximately a month after being forced to resign as Raiders coach, with the firing based largely on reports from both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that released Gruden’s emails as part of an investigation of former Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder.
Gruden has long claimed that those emails were released at least in part by Snyder as an effort to get him fired. The emails were full of a colorful array of slurs, ethnic and otherwise, and the two sides have gone back in forth in endless rounds of legal jousting ever since.
Florio did dig up some juicy details, however, when he obtained and reviewed a copy of the Case Conference Report. He’s a lawyer by trade, so he knows his way around a legal document like this, and part of what Gruden’s lawyers included was a witness list with a fascinating array of names.
The owners who would have been subpoenaed included Davis, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, which undoubtedly would produce some fireworks, not to mention plenty of salacious copy. Other prominent names were Desiree Perez of Roc Nation, former NFLPA executive director Demaurice Smith and former NFL general counsel Jeff Pash.
Part of what Gruden is trying to do here is to get paid. He’s hoping articles like Florio’s will force the NFL to finally settle, while the NFL continue to employ the strategy that time will eventually fade Gruden’s name into obscurity and the lawsuit will eventually die a quiet death. Meanwhile, no one wins other than the lawyers, who continue to get paid.