Summer of Change (or Lack Thereof)
Apologies and platitudes aren't enough anymore - on the frustrating summer and Jon Gruden
There’s an art to apologia, a craft as ancient as the first time one caveperson caught their comrade nicking an extra piece of meat. A learned contrition that leaves goosepimples upon the faces of the accused, oil intermingling with sweat as they turn straight to camera or to their laptops or IG or their Notes App and communicate, with trembling fingers and quivering lips, that they are sorry. They tell us that they won’t do it again.
They tell us they’re sorry, and expect for us to accept it.
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Summer, traditionally, is not the season most associated with shifts, ebbs, and flows. Spring, with its verdancy and bloom, earns that title. However, as any San Franciscan can tell you, in our fair city spring runs from April to early October, with the heat of the summer only kicking into high gear once the protective layers surrounding our Mediterranean shelf are stripped away.
So, when multiple opportunities came knocking on my door over the past few months, I was optimistic. April showers had resulted in May flowers.
To be clear, none of these were replacing anything I’m working on now; these were additives, lottery tickets that had an aura about them of life-changing experiences. A chance for an esteemed editor to give feedback on a pet project. A partnership opportunity with an incredible organization. And, perhaps most importantly, a relationship with someone that, despite my stony heart and generally cautious demeanor when it comes to romance, was slowly inching their way into becoming the center of my world.
The (unfortunately, ongoing) pandemic impacted us all differently, but for me, the timing was particularly inopportune. I had moved across the country in November 2019, leaving all of my East Coast friends behind for a city wherein I had maybe three acquaintances. Right when I was beginning to find my groove in this new place, our offices shut down and Covid took hold. For over a year, my nightly routine was the same: wake up, breakfast, work, lunch, work some more, run 5-7 miles and/or lift, shower, dinner, write and/or game, bed. Sometimes my day would be sprinkled with just a tad of existential dread as I inched closer to my 30th birthday, saw another grey hair fall into the sink, felt another migraine pulse through my skull. It was not a glamorous, nor a particularly interesting, time.
Still, even as the world around me burned, I tried to stay optimistic. Every day, I told myself that this pandemic, this state of being, was temporary. All I could do was take things in stride, incrementally. My goal was to emerge at the end of this pandemic, whenever that would be, ready to make up for lost time as quickly as possible.
I got my first Pfizer shot in March 2021. My second injection came through in April. In May, I was able to see my parents and East Coast friends for the first time in 18 months. These opportunities were coming fast and furious.
May turned to June, then. Spring became summer on the calendar but the bluster of change stayed alight in my heart, dandelion seeds flying aloft through my bloodstream and foraging their way into my brain. July was a haze of optimism, sunny afternoons at the park or the beach or Lake Tahoe, weeknights filled with the frenetic pinballing electrical shocks of early-stage love. My previously arduously created routines crumbled as my new normal took hold; I worked by day while by night I dreamt with a smile, wild delusions nesting in my head. I dared to think about my life in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I thought that this time period was going to set the stage for everything to come.
Then, things fell apart.
One by one, every seed that had been planted, withered away. The comic I had submitted for review did not receive any further feedback. Logistics and unfortunate timing prevented other opportunities from taking root. And, finally, on October 3rd, my relationship ended. We were watching Squid Game when the awkward conversation commenced, and the timing was incredibly apropos. Red Light, Green Light claimed another casualty.
Every time, I knew inherently it wasn’t my fault. This was just a string of bad luck, and not even particularly AWFUL things, just unfortunate things, delivered to me by generally good people who were handcuffed by circumstances or timing or other issues that transpired. I’d made the mistake of actually thinking that, in my internal forever war between being satisfied and happy, happy would win a rare skirmish. I’d gotten my hopes up and I’d been let down.
Every person who let me down said “I’m sorry.” But, in my heart, it didn’t really matter. The circumstances never do. It’s the actions that were important, and they made their thoughts known. I knew where they stood, on the subject of me.
At this time, I wasn’t important enough to them to act on my behalf.
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Jon Gruden IS football. Present tense emphasized.
Jon Gruden’s father, Jim, was the Director of Player Personnel of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His brother, Jay, has a coaching pedigree of his own. Like many SOFTPROS (Sons of Football Professionals), Gruden started in the college ranks as a Graduate Assistant and leveraged connections despite the bare minimum of success to climb the ladder in the most notoriously nepotistic industry in the world. He rubbed elbows with Mike Holmgren and Paul Hackett. At 28 (!!) years old, Holmgren brought him on board to be the WR coach in Green Bay, where he rode the coattails of Sterling Sharpe (the only WR he coached over that three year span to catch more than 60 passes in a single season) to a gig as the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator. Ricky Watters balled out in 1996, which he then parlayed into a head coaching role with the Oakland Raiders.
(Aside: By the way, look at these year-long receiving and rushing stats from Gruden teams. It feels like his strategy was “have one good player on the team and run them into the ground.” Oldheads I’m sure can educate me on if he was actually a good coordinator. I was extremely young when he was an offensive coordinator so I’m unaware of the nuances, but the raw data points to someone who lucked into a couple of talented players and just fed them the ball constantly.)
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Anyway, in Oakland, and then in Tampa, Gruden stepped up his game. He became a renowned head coach, the media even calling him “Chucky”, a playful riff on how similar the young savant’s face was to that of the murderous horror movie doll (who, to my knowledge, is not a homophobe nor racist nor real, so maybe this comparison was actually an undersell as to how vile the genuine article actually was.) Gruden won a Super Bowl! His press conferences were known for being generally entertaining affairs! He was friends with everyone! Gruden is, in many ways, the personification of American Football.
When he was fired by Tampa, in something almost like a mercy killing after six years of not even making it past the Wild Card Game of the playoffs, when his principles had finally petered out, Gruden was welcomed to ESPN mere months afterwards to be a commentator on Monday Night Football. He was made to walk the plank from the Raymond James Stadium pirate ship and landed in a golden lifeboat, where he was further lauded for giving the “football guy’s perspective” as a color man in the MNF booth. Gruden’s love for Spider 2 Y Banana and calling players “this guy” before heaping praise upon them became memes beloved all over the Internet. He served as the spokesman for Corona and Hooters, the two favorite brands of straight white men. He remained beloved, any losing records or awkward encounters with former players (here’s looking at you, Keyshawn Johnson) left in the past.
This is a man who has not had to face a shred of consequence his entire life because the entire football world is set up for him to succeed. Even when he fails, he succeeds, because people like him. He’s football. This is who football is.
That’s why, when the emails he sent to Bruce Allen came out, a lot of NFL viewers were stunned. Jon Gruden? The affable, red-faced guy who likes Spiders and Bananas, who Peyton Manning speaks so highly of, who Tony Dungy and Mike Tirico both refused to condemn because he’s so nice? That guy? A racist? A homophobe? In 2021?
But really, for me, the reaction was a total lack of surprise. After all, Jon Gruden IS the NFL. And this is what the NFL is.
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The NFL may want to be something different. The NFL, as an organization, definitely has aspirations to change the way the league is perceived. However, an organization is defined by the people who comprise it. And Jon Gruden, day-to-day, acted just like many allege the NFL does: masking insidious hiring methods, institutional racism, and player safety practices with a smile, a nod, and an aw shucks appeal to just “try better next time.” He’s Ted Lasso with a more punchable face.
It’s not the viewer’s fault when something like this happens. Gruden can apologize all he wants. But, as is evident, it doesn’t really matter. The circumstances never do. It’s the actions that are important, and Gruden made his thoughts known. We all know where he stands now, on the subject of us, and by proxy, we know where the league stands as well.
At this time, we weren’t important enough to them to act on our behalf. To truly act, to make a difference, besides just eliminating a single person’s job. This is cutting out a single cancerous cell but leaving the body untreated.
Jon Gruden was directly on staffs with some of the most fruitful “coaching tree” bearers in recent memory. His replacement, Rich Bisaccia, is a devoted Gruden disciple. The aforementioned Dungy’s coaching tree all stems from what he learned under Gruden. Mike Tomlin, who, in a tone deaf salvo, said this week that “he’s saddened by the people offended by [Gruden’s comments]".” Frank Reich. So many others from the Dungy, the Holmgren, the Hackett trees, all fruits that if not spoiled by this bad apple, have at least come into contact with it, dark spots metastasizing on mottled red and green skin.
This is not a Jon Gruden problem. This is the revelation of something institutional. This is what years of nepotism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and groupthink can do to a confederation. The NFL has to do more than type a few tepid Tweets to fix this. There needs to be an action plan put into place. I don’t care if another coach is fired. Or three other coaches. Or ten of them. Or all of the coaches. Fire them all, have quarterbacks call their own plays in the huddle for a few weeks (aside: honestly, this would be very cool and I’m kind of hoping that it happens — I actually want to write about this alternate reality now because I’m curious which quarterback would call the most punts. My money is on Daniel Jones.) Get the stench of these old, decrepit men out of the locker rooms, and then, only then, can we move forward.
I’m sick of hearing “I’m sorry.” We’re done with it. Get your shit together, or get out.
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And now, I have to renege on all the words I said above and apologize - to you, dear reader. I promise, though, it’s for a purpose! It’s sincere, and at the end of this, you’ll know what action I pledge to take to ensure that this isn’t just empty words.
Honestly? Ever since the winter of 2017, the last time I updated my podcast, there’s been a hole in my heart. To be frank, for various reasons, I lost some of my love for football. Not the sport, of course, but the institution, the business surrounding it. Growing up, my greatest dream was to work in football, but I don’t want to be party to an industry that, to be frank, sees me as a liability, a queer pockmark, as someone who’ll cause more trouble than they’re worth.
There are some incredible creators and writers out there, many of whom I’ve been lucky enough to connect with in person and over the internet, all of whom are doing great work and serving as important voices in this next generation of football coverage. They’ll continue to do so. I’ll celebrate all of their successes. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to succeed in the same way. I’ve made peace with this and I’m ecstatic with where I am right now as an esports industry professional cum comic and other things author cum ultimate frisbee enthusiast cum shoot-from-the-hip Tweeter. My ambitions, to be frank, are no longer to work in the football industry.
Sometimes, though, I need a space to say what I’m thinking, because I do believe that I can provide a different perspective from a lot of the voices out there and 280 characters is not enough to communicate said perspectives clearly. And that’s why I’ve started Hammermusings.
This is going to be a space that I’ll aim to update biweekly - sometimes maybe even more often if the news calls for it, sometimes I’ll miss a week, but I’ll look to average out two posts per month. I doubt every post will be as lengthy as this one, but who knows. The content will be very varied. Sometimes, it will be about sports. Sometimes, it will be about video games. My own personal experiences. Religion. Anime. Sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues. Some intertwining of all of these things - Sports, Society, and Stuff as I like to say. I think about a lot, and I believe all of these things are connected. I hope, similar to the podcast I once hosted, I can provide you with a unique perspective that you find interesting and thought-provoking. Hopefully I might be able to inspire you to try a new book or TV show or video game as well. I don’t want to make every post as navel-gazy as this one (it was my first one, so give me a break.) I’ll try to shift away from generic content wherever possible. If this newsletter goes generic, it’s a sign that I need to take a step back and recalibrate its purpose.
That is my pledge, by way of apology.
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One more thing.
I don’t want to get too deep down the rabbit hole of philosophy. Philosophy is nice in small doses but if this post proves nothing, it’s that I value action over platitudes.
However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s that sometimes we’re fully prepared and ready to take that next step — we just need the world to catch up to us.
I am still a little punch drunk at how quickly these opportunities collapsed around me. This summer was supposed to make up for lost time. It was going to be the stepping stone to the rest of my life, the pacesetter for decades to come. And yet, it ended with a fizzle, and me directly back where I started. I was ready to meet the challenges ahead of me; it was the other people who tapped out.
The NFL, similarly, has ostensibly made progress over the past few years in terms of creating healthier workplaces. Carl Nassib hasn’t been cut from the Raiders (yet.) There are multiple women coaches and women referees - and maybe Sarah Thomas will be in line for a head position next year, although Land Clark and Brad Rogers, neither of whom have spent as much time in the NFL as Thomas, both leapfrogged her for main roles this past year. There are positive changes being made incrementally. However, clearly, while there’s new paint being put up on the house, it’s still a major fixer-upper with mold and rats and mildew festering on the wooden boards inside.
In both our lives and in the NFL, we should be grateful for the incremental progress that we’ve made — every hard-earned yard. However, we can never take it for granted. That’s why if Jon Gruden ever gets another dollar from an NFL sanctioned broadcast or team, if he shows up on some redemption tour in a year saying he’s a changed man, we need to say “We don’t believe you.” Jon Gruden lost his footballing privileges permanently. We must stand firmly by that.
The NFL needs to take a long look in the mirror and rework their own institutional system; perhaps this can be their wakeup call. I’m pessimistic, but I’ve been proven wrong before. Just getting this bad man, and those of his ilk, out, though, is a triumph.
Jon Gruden is what the NFL is right now. If the league wants to change that, he can’t come back. If the league wants to move on from this, they need to catch up to where all of us are. And we’re not merely looking for an empty apology and a promise to do better. We’re looking for concrete action to keep men like Jon Gruden from ever having power in NFL locker rooms again. Put up or shut up.