Private exchanges should stay private

OPINION:

The resignation of Las Vegas Raiders Coach Jon Gruden is certainly an unfortunate set of circumstances (“Gruden resigns as Raiders coach amid uproar over emails,” Web, Oct. 11). Gruden is a great coach, but his private emails are no longer private. It’s hard to excuse the context of his correspondence with another longtime NFL associate, but that’s where we are.

In a world of NFL professionals, your demonstrated conduct means nothing if your private emails are offensive. It would be fair to suggest that most career NFL professionals have similar thoughts about how the game is being changed, and who is changing it. Many jocks are simply studs with more brawn than brain and when they get together it’s all about testosterone.

So now is the time for the NFL to investigate every NFL coach and front-office executive and dig into their emails, too. If Gruden had an exchange with Bruce Allen, we have two guys making off-color remarks. Any guess as to how many more are out there? If we are going to consider any of this, the NFL office and owners should have to give up their private emails, too. You can be sure Commissioner Goodell’s emails would be exceptionally entertaining, and Dan Snyder’s shorts are bunching about now.

Private and public remarks should be considered in their context. If you cannot have a private conversation, where are we? Knowing that no other NFL representative is going to go under the microscope makes one thing very clear: For some reason Gruden was singled out. Now that we’ve gone this far, imagine what the players emails might look like.

STEPHEN MOUNGELIS

Mt. Airy, Md.