The legal dispute between the NFL and Jon Gruden is entering the next round. The NFL is now seeking to have Gruden’s lawsuit dismissed.

The legal dispute between former coach Jon Gruden and the NFL continues to escalate: Following a decision by the Nevada Supreme Court, the league has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The case was referred back to the district court in Nevada on Thursday, whereupon the NFL’s lawyers immediately filed two motions.

Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell in November 2021. He accuses the league of a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” that destroyed his career. The trigger was emails from 2011 to 2018 that Gruden had sent during his time as an ESPN analyst.

These emails contained racist and other derogatory remarks. The content was published by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, leading to Gruden’s resignation as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in October 2021. Gruden is seeking damages for the loss of his career and advertising contracts.

NFL vs. Gruden: League seeks dismissal of lawsuit

The NFL strongly rejects the allegations. In their motion filed Thursday, the league’s attorneys describe the lawsuit as “an attempt by Jon Gruden to blame the NFL and its commissioner for the consequences of the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic emails he himself wrote and widely distributed.” . The league is invoking Nevada’s anti-SLAPP law, which protects lawsuits that seek to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The emails were passed on to the media unchanged, the lawyers argue, a “classic First Amendment activity” that would clearly be covered by freedom of the press.

Back in 2022, a judge in Las Vegas had already rejected the NFL’s motions to dismiss the lawsuit or refer it to arbitration. Under the NFL constitution, the arbitration would have been supervised by Goodell. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the league’s appeal, ruling that the arbitration clause was “inappropriate and did not apply to Gruden as a former employee.”

Gruden, who coached the Raiders from 2018 to 2021 and previously won the 2003 Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, currently works as a consultant for the New Orleans Saints. The district court must now rule on the NFL’s motions. A dismissal would end the case for now; otherwise, expensive negotiations loom.