Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden: ‘The truth will come out’

Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden, in a conversation with HBO last week, said “the truth will come out” when asked to comment on the network’s interview with NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith.

HBO correspondent Andrea Kremer appeared on the “Real Sports Podcast” to discuss the segment the program that featured an interview with Smith, the target of a racist trope in the first of Gruden’s emails to leak.

Kremer said producer Maggie Burbank called Gruden for comment and was surprised when he answered the phone. Burbank had a brief discussion with Gruden, who declined an on-camera interview.

“He says he’s letting the dust settle,” Kremer said of the conversation. “He said, ‘People who know me know what I stand for for 58 years. I have a resume of 58 years.’ He said, ‘The truth will come out.’ It’s certainly cryptic.”

Kremer addressed the perceived inequity in discipline levied against the Washington Football Team, the original target of the investigation that eventually led to the discovery and release of Gruden’s emails, and the Raiders losing their head coach.

“Daniel Snyder was fined $10 million and ostensibly has stepped away and let his wife run the club, which to use the term of somebody at the league office, That’s fiction,’ the idea that Tanya Snyder’s running the club,” Kremer said. “However, Mark Davis has been severely impacted. And I’m not defending Mark Davis. I’m just pointing out a fact here. Dan Snyder continues on. The Washington Football Team continues on.”

Kremer said one of the lasting takeaways from the scandal could be the further discrepancies between how the league disciplines owners and how it handles situations involving coaches and players.

“The league is very selective,” she said. “They turn a blind eye to ownership, owner transgressions off the field. It’s just that simple. What do I mean by that? Well, remember SpyGate? Remember DeflateGate? Remember things of that nature?

“Okay. There was a 243-page report on Tom Brady deflating footballs, a 144-page report on Richie Incognito’s harassing his then-teammate Jonathan Martin, and a 96-page report on Ray Rice’s domestic violence case. Those are all against players.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.