AS HE HOPPED on a call with Roger Goodell, Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis had no plans to fire his head coach.
It was the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. A few hours earlier, The Wall Street Journal had published a blockbuster story about an email Raiders coach Jon Gruden had sent 10 years earlier, when he worked as a color analyst for ESPN's "Monday Night Football." Gruden, in an exchange with Washington's general manager Bruce Allen, had called NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith "Dumboriss" and described him using a racist trope. To most observers, Gruden's dismissal seemed like a matter of when, not if.