one of the biggest and most surprising stories of the 2021 nfl season has been the resignation of las vegas raiders head coach jon gruden over offensive language he used in emails.

ex-raiders coach jon gruden (Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports)

patrick walker reported on  cbssports.com that gruden…

resigned abruptly following leaked emails that showed [he] used racist, homophobic and misogynistic language spanning several years in conversations with former washington football team executive bruce allen

resign means gruden made the decision to leave, he was not fired. abruptly means suddenly and unexpectedly. leaked means made public indirectly and unoffically, usually through the media. span means last or cover.  former means bruce allen doesn’t have this job anymore.

lifespan (how long a person lives) is a combination of the words life and span 

the headline of the article refers to the economic fallout (negative effects) of the situation.

Jon Gruden emails: Raiders to work out contract settlement over remaining $40 million due, per report

the phrasal verb work out means fix, arrange. a settlement is an agreement or a deal.  in 2018, gruden signed a $100 million contract (one hundred million dollar contract–dollar is singular because it is part of an adjective phrase that describes the contract). the article mentions that ian rappaport of nfl network  reported that the raiders still have to pay gruden $40 million (forty million dollars–dollars is plural because it refers to a quantity that is a noun) i.e. there are $40 million remaining (pending) on gruden’s contract. due means must be paid.  per in this context means according to, from.

jon gruden’s settlement was probably much bigger than this. and it probably won’t be paid in cash. (herrmanandherrman.com)

walker describes the situation like this…

owner mark davis must… figure out what to do with the remaining salary owed to his former head coach

figure out means analyze and find a solution. owner is proprietor i.e. it’s his team. owe means have a debt, must pay.

raiders owner mark davis (d. ross cameron associated press)

the article shares that in 2018 when he took the job, gruden said “if i can’t get it done, i’m not going to take their money.” walker points out that this comment…

gives davis some interesting leverage in severance talks

leverage means advantage. severance refers to packages employees receive when they stop working for a company. 

these words hurt less if u have a severance package

can raiders owner mark davis legally argue that he doesn’t have to pay the rest of jon gruden’s contract because of gruden’s enthusiastic words when he took over in 2018?  walker says…

while there’s a myriad of ways to interpret what “get it done” might mean e.g., improving upon the franchise’s losing ways and/or making the playoffs and/or winning the super bowl no one can argue he ultimately did the opposite of whatever he might’ve meant, disgracing both himself and the organization in the process. but, again, davis would have to be willing to hold him to this comment to the letter, which remains to be seen.

myriad means a lot. might means possibly. e.g. stands for exempli gratia, a latin phrase. it’s used in modern english to mean for example. whatever means any possible meaning that gruden intended. might’ve meant is third conditional–a hypothetical  in the past. we are not totally sure what gruden’s idea was. might’ve is a contraction of might have. meant is the irregular past participle of mean. willing means prepared to do. hold to means davis would make gruden honor his comment and not take any more money. to the letter means exactly. remains to be seen means we don’t know if davis will do that or not.

remember when u said u wouldn’t take our money? (justin sullivan/getty images)

at the end of october it was announced that gruden and the raiders reached an agreement, but the amount of the settlement was not disclosed (reported). on cbssports.com john breech explained that…

due to the way his tenure ended with the raiders, there’s a good chance gruden didn’t walk away with the full $40 million, but you can also probably assume that he didn’t walk away empty-handed.

due to means because of.  tenure (pronounced TEN-yur) is time occupying a position. empty-handed means with nothing.  the phrasal verb walk away means resign–or just leave like it’s used in the title of this lovely 60s pop song…

this weekend, gruden has hit back against the nfl. on npr.com catherine whelan writes that gruden is…

suing the nfl and its commissioner, roger goodell, for what gruden’s lawyers say was a concerted effort by the league to ruin his career.

sue is a legal action to recover damages. concerted means coordinated, planned. ruin means destroy. 

many football fans know gruden as chucky because of his resemblance to the character in the child’s play horror movies

the english practice extra for this post uses the word cancelled twice. cancel is a modern way to refer to losing public support.  and listen at 1:23 for crappy — it means low quality, bad. the video also contains several examples of vocabulary that appear in other posts on richyrocks.com: leak, lead to, come out, political, and dump. 

what are your feelings about jon gruden’s controversial emails, resignation and  lawsuit? share your opinion under leave a reply