Report: NFLPA president DeMaurice Smith releases statement over Gruden email

NFLPA president DeMaurice Smith has issued a statement over the remarks uncovered from Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden in a 2011 email. In the email, Gruden used a racial trope to describe the NFLPA president. According to the story recently released by Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal, the Raiders head coach a racially insensitive reference to Smith’s lips.

“Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires,” Gruden wrote in the 2011 email.

Gruden contested to Beaton that he did not recall sending the email in question, and insisted that the characteristics he used had no racial undertones.

Smith on Gruden’s email

Since the breaking of this story, Smith released this statement.

“This is not the first racist comment that I’ve heard and it probably will not be the last,” he said. “This is a thick skin job for someone with dark skin, just like it always has been for many people who look like me and work in corporate America. You know people are sometimes saying things behind your back that are racist just like you see people talk and write about you using thinly coded and racist language.

“Racism like this comes from the fact that I’m at the same table as they are and they don’t think someone who looks like me belongs. I’m sorry my family has to see something like this but I would rather they know. I will not let it define me.”

Gruden said he was displeased with the direction that Smith had taken the NFLPA during the lockout. He explained he’s used the term “rubber lips” to describe people he thought were liars in the past. But did admit that he believed his email went “too far.”

The NFL discovered the email during its investigation into the Washington Football Team’s toxic workplace culture. After being notified of this situation, the NFL has released a statement regarding the matter.

 “The email from Jon Gruden denigrating DeMaurice Smith is appalling, abhorrent, and wholly contrary to the NFL’s values. We condemn the statement and regret any harm that its publication may inflict on Mr. Smith or anyone else,” wrote the NFL, according to Tom Pelissero.