Jeff Fisher rejects Jon Gruden declare that NFL pressured Rams to draft Michael Sam

Jeff Fisher has joined the refrain of groups, gamers and contemporaries lambasting former Raiders coach Jon Gruden for the content material of emails he exchanged with former Washington Soccer Workforce president Bruce Allen from 2010 by means of 2018.

Fisher took specific exception to Gruden’s perception that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell compelled him — then coach of the St. Louis Rams — to draft Michael Sam, just because he got here out as homosexual forward of the 2014 NFL Draft. Gruden, in an e-mail to Allen, mentioned the NFL should not have pressured him into drafting “q—rs.”

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Fisher responded to that declare Tuesday evening, saying he acquired no such strain from the league. He additionally defined why St. Louis took Sam with its second-to-last choose of the draft, and strengthened his help of the 2014 seventh-round choice:

Sam, the co-SEC Defensive Participant of the Yr in 2013, tallied 47 complete tackles, 18 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, two passes defensed, two compelled fumbles and a fumble restoration for a landing that season. It was a 12 months wherein his Missouri Tigers went 12-2 and made the SEC championship recreation. He performed on the follow squads of St. Louis and Dallas in 2014 earlier than spending a while within the CFL with the Montreal Alouettes in 2015.

“As a head coach for over 20 years, we drafted or did not draft, gamers primarily based on a wide range of qualities,” Fisher wrote of his drafting practices. “Their sexual orientation would by no means — and will by no means — play an element within the decision-making course of.”

MORE: Keyshawn Johnson blasts Gruden over emails: Former Buccaneers receiver says coach has ‘always been a fraud’

Sam was not the one goal of Gruden’s hateful language. The previous Buccaneers and Raiders coach — who despatched these emails whereas a coloration analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night time Soccer” — additionally used a racist trope to explain former NFLPA govt director DeMaurice Smith, mocked Caitlyn Jenner following her transition and used a number of homophobic slurs to explain Goodell, league house owners and reporters who cowl the league.

Gruden introduced his resignation because the Raiders’ coach on Monday following The New York Instances’ report of mentioned emails, which had been uncovered by the NFL as a part of a office misconduct investigation into Allen.

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Others who’ve denounced Gruden following the e-mail leaks are his former group, the Buccaneers, and former extensive receiver Keyshawn Johnson. The NFL and Raiders additionally denounced the primary e-mail that got here to gentle on Friday, when Gruden advised Allen, “Dumboriss Smith has lips the dimensions of michellin (sic) tires.”

Fisher, who started his NFL head teaching profession in 1994 with the Houston Oilers, coached 22 years within the league. That features a five-year stint with the Rams, each in St. Louis and in Los Angeles. He went 173-165-1 as a head coach, together with 31-45 with the Rams. He final coached within the NFL in 2016.