Buccaneers Remove Former Coach Jon Gruden From Ring Of Honor

TAMPA, FLA. — A day after former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden resigned from his job with the Las Vegas Raiders over offensive emails that came to light this week, the Bucs have removed him from their Ring of Honor.

Gruden led the Bucs to their first Super Bowl title in 2002 with a win over the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVI and became the youngest coach at the time to win an NFL championship at age 39. Gruden coached the Bucs until 2008 and was added to the team’s Ring of Honor in 2017. In 2020, the team erected a statue of Gruden in the training facility, paying homage to his legacy in Tampa.

However, Gruden was found to have sent a string of offensive emails over the course of seven years as late as 2018 that included racist, homophobic and misogynistic language. The emails were brought to light by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, which detailed the pattern of his emails between 2011 and 2018. Gruden, who released a statement Monday night saying he was stepping down as the coach of the Raiders, addressed the initial Wall Street Journal and said last week that his language in the emails “went too far” but added, “there has never been a blade of racism in me.”

In his statement Monday night, Gruden said, "I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff, and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”

The Buccaneers announced Tuesday that Gruden would no longer be part of the team’s Ring of Honor.

"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have advocated for purposeful change in the areas of race relations, gender equality, diversity and inclusion for many years," the team said. "While we acknowledge Jon Gruden's contributions on the field, his actions go against our core values as an organization. Therefore, he will no longer continue to be a member of the Buccaneers Ring of Honor."

On Tuesday, former Bucs receiver Keyshawn Johnson – who played for Gruden in 2002 and 2003 – said on his ESPN radio show that he never respected Gruden as a coach and called his former coach “a fraud”.

"I didn't know that Jon would say things like that and put them in an email. He's just always been a fraud to me.,” Johnson said. “From day one, he's been a used car salesman. And people bought it because he inherited a championship team built by Tony Dungy and Rich McKay, and he came in there with a little bit of different energy than we had with Tony, and it kind of kicked us over the top to get our world championship — which I am grateful for. But at the same time, I also saw through who he was through that journey of getting a championship."

Johnson also said that McKay stepped down as Bucs general manager in the middle of the season after the Super Bowl championship because he no longer wanted to deal with Gruden’s “shenanigans” He said that Gruden constantly talked behind people’s back – which was one of his traits, Johnson said.

‘I always told people, that dude’s a bad guy,” Johnson later said on an ESPN television appearance. “…I also understood who he was. Am I surprised that this sort of behavior would come out about Coach Gruden? I’m not surprised that he would talk about people in (disparaging) views behind their back? Not at all. Am I surprised that he used racial, insensitive things? Am I surprised that he was acting in homophobic situations and talking about the LGBT community? Am I surprised he went after the Vice President, went after the Commissioner? No. I’m not surprised, but what I am surprised about is some of the words he used because I never saw that side of him myself.”