Warren Sapp Sticks Up For Jon Gruden
March 29th, 2023
“Thank you, Warren!”
Bucs legend Warren Sapp hopped on a podcast this week. And whenever Sapp is unfiltered, it’s a must-listen.
So Sapp appeared on something called the “LevyCast” hosted by Dan Levy. Best Joe can tell, this Levy is a Chicago-based personality who once upon a time was a Bears reporter. Curiously, maybe half the podcast centered around Levy asking Sapp questions about the Bears.
Levy got Sapp to talk about his Raiders days but the team where Sapp made his bones, the Bucs? Nah. Still, Sapp opened up on how former Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Chucky has been outed (allegedly) and blacklisted by the NFL.
Levy mentioned how Chucky had lost the locker room in Las Vegas over his unearthed sordid emails and immediately Sapp defended Chucky.
“Who said he lost the locker room?” Sapp asked. “He didn’t lose that locker room. No way.
“I will tell you one thing: I won’t defend the gay comments and I won’t try to. He is not a racist. … No! Not racist at all. Not racist at all!”
Then Sapp mentioned how Chucky is in a legal battle with the NFL over the planted emails and folks sooner or later will learn about other emails, and maybe a whole lot more dirty laundry from others around the league. And Sapp smells a rat.
“How the hell does five emails out of 600,000 — we saw, what, five emails from Gruden and one from Adam Schefter? — I need to see the other emails,” Sapp said. “I think we’ve got a couple more surprises coming and it won’t to be coming from the Gruden side.”
Sapp repeated in no uncertain terms if he thought Chucky was a racist, then he wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
“I’m going to stand with my guy,” Sapp said of Chucky. “He’s not a racist. … I wouldn’t walk into a racist’s office. I wouldn’t eat at a racist’s house. I wouldn’t hang out with a racist and play golf with. I wouldn’t drink with him.
“You know what I am saying?”
Joe thinks it’s awfully big of Sapp to defend his old coach. Few people know Chucky better than Sapp. Remember, Sapp played for the man, won a ring with him. And Sapp visited Chucky with the Raiders multiple times. Who knows Chucky better than Sapp?
March 29th, 2023 at 12:05 am
The way Gruden was treated by the owners was disgraceful.
Talk about sensitive fragile flowers
March 29th, 2023 at 12:16 am
Good on Sapp!
The whole thing against Gruden seemed like a hit job and even more now since he seemed to be the only one targeted…
March 29th, 2023 at 12:28 am
Our team hasn’t been the same since Chucky got pulled from the Ring of Honor.
Sapp has tangible reasons to be pulled from the Ring, but he wasn’t, and for good reason, he’s one of the greatest players in franchise history.
We live in a world where what people say matters more than their actions. You can’t be a racist and coach NFL players in this day and age. It’s simply impossible. As for the gay thing, he overpaid Carl Nassib, which basically makes Chucky a gay icon.
March 29th, 2023 at 12:38 am
Back when the Glaziers fired Chucky they were saying……”I’m tired of chasing my dreams. I’m just going to ask where they are going and catch up with them later.”
We are still waiting.
March 29th, 2023 at 1:19 am
I think the Glazers welcomed an excuse to pull Gruden from the ROH. Chucky was prone to talk shi* about them and I doubt they appreciated it. It was an overreaction, obviously.
March 29th, 2023 at 1:19 am
I think the Glazers welcomed an excuse to pull Gruden from the ROH. Chucky was prone to talk sh!t about them and I doubt they appreciated it. It was an overreaction, obviously.
March 29th, 2023 at 1:48 am
I sometimes wonder how this would have played out if Al Davis was still alive.
March 29th, 2023 at 1:59 am
Make Gruden great again
March 29th, 2023 at 2:07 am
Hat-Tip to Sapp
March 29th, 2023 at 2:54 am
Sapp tells it like it is. Someone in the NFL front office had it in for Chuckie, that is for sure but I bet Goodell and his tools have made it impossible to prove in a court of law.
March 29th, 2023 at 3:14 am
He needs. To be put back in the Ring of Honor.
March 29th, 2023 at 4:31 am
Billionaires are a sensitive bunch. The most fragile of all egos.
March 29th, 2023 at 5:27 am
I’m 62, and my friends and I still insult each other the way we did when we were 12…. It wouldn’t look good on the front of a newspaper, but there’s nothing more to read into it
March 29th, 2023 at 5:46 am
Sapp as a character reference? lol
March 29th, 2023 at 6:29 am
How about someone investigate Roger Goodell and see what’s in his emails? I bet he isn’t squeaky clean, either. It was a hit job on Gruden.
March 29th, 2023 at 6:37 am
Westernbuc
“Our team hasn’t been the same…”
Cmon Man. That’s weak.
March 29th, 2023 at 7:02 am
@BA’s Red Pen…good point…I never hear anything good about Sapp as a person.
That being said, living in the time of cancel culture really made this while situation worse. I don’t think John Gruden is homophobic or racist, but in the times we leave in, context is not important, what you wrote, what you did is “scripture”… don’t know how John Gruden recovers from all this, but I hope one day he does. He is a great personality for the game.
March 29th, 2023 at 7:29 am
Yeah, I never thought of Gruden as a racist, he just unfiltered. He has been around the league his entire life, he would have been outed way before this incident. As far as him and Keyshawn, that was just a bad mix of personalities. That being said, you can’t put on paper what you said about the Glazers and not expect them to respond.
March 29th, 2023 at 7:35 am
Scapegoat, he had nothing to do with the Washington team. He was ousted because Roger Nogoodall and owners wanted him out of the nfl. I guess the Glazers are to worried about their appearance another reason Bowles is still here.
March 29th, 2023 at 7:36 am
Speaking for Pablo
“If Hon Gruden was a racist, he wouldn’t have Heff Garcia as his QB”
March 29th, 2023 at 7:49 am
I think the saying is “if you think words hurt then you’ve never been punched in the face.
March 29th, 2023 at 8:14 am
There was/is no conspiracy, people. Gruden was not targeted because someone high up in the NFL had an axe to grind.
Waaaay back when he was our head coach, one of the knocks on him was his mouth. That and his willingness to stab his QBs in the back. I absolutely hated the way he talked…but I understood it was also just the way he was as a person.
Unfortunately for him, times have changed.
American society and the behavior it rejects has changed. He did not evolve with it.
I do not agree with the way he was treated…and I certainly think he should still be in the RoH…but he violated the rules of what is acceptable and what isn’t.
I’m old school…I have been resistant to the movement of political correctness…but I eventually came to realize some things.
Each generation leaves a mark on the world. That mark can seem extreme to previous generations..but proceeding generations tend to reap the benefits. What we view as extreme now, may lead toward an improved society later.
This generation is all about fair treatment and respect of others. It will need time to evolve into something less extreme, but eventually…it could be viewed as the birthing of world peace. Acceptance. A society where people are treated like human beings instead of being judged by appearance or such.
So…eventually…it will probably be viewed as a good thing. I don’t know if I’m truly there yet, but my involvement in media the past couple years has forced me to learn new ways of expression and a certain level of acceptance. It has forced me to evolve.
Jon Gruden (who is younger than me) simply did not evolve…which is odd considering his level of experience. He did not learn the most important lesson of all:
You don’t have to change who you are to treat others with respect…but you do have to change the way you express yourself.
March 29th, 2023 at 8:15 am
And that is about as philosophical as I’m ever going to get here. lol
March 29th, 2023 at 8:18 am
It’s a joke to cancel a mans accomplished career over smack talk. We have all done it.
March 29th, 2023 at 8:20 am
Oddball Says
“I think the saying is “if you think words hurt then you’ve never been punched in the face.”
Another quote:
‘The power of life and death is in the tongue.’
March 29th, 2023 at 8:37 am
The Gruden thing is a sore point with me. Gruden was intentionally blackballed by the commish. The man is not a racist. Who amongst us has not in our past said something racial in our lives? I know I certainly have. And I am not a racist by any means. You cannot be a racist and love NFL football..Period. I hope Gruden eventually wins his case and exposes everything.
March 29th, 2023 at 9:12 am
So the man, Chuckie, doesn’t change. Remains true to himself. The world loves him. He’s successful. But the media world changes, so he gets screwed? No thanks. Now on the gay front, the NFL had better not invite any of the NHL players who refused to wear a gay-promoting warm up jersey to a game. (Which includes ALL of our Tampa Bay Lightning).
March 29th, 2023 at 9:12 am
How many people in this world who have ever used email would like to be judged by their five most embarrassing messages? Ditto with text messages. Ditto with various conversations at various times with various people.
It’s the cancel culture at work – the 21st century equivalent of Puritanism and the Inquisition.
March 29th, 2023 at 9:49 am
We all know what Gruden’s comment was. It really does not have anything to do with whether or not someone is gay. It is a demeaning comment. Fighting words, if you will. A way of saying you have no respect for someone.
It was not a nice thing to say, but in no way reflects Gruden’s attitude toward the gay population. That remains as much of an unknown after the comment as it did before. What it does mean is that he truly does not respect the Glazers. Anyone surprised by that?
March 29th, 2023 at 10:36 am
Gruden has a big foul mouth. Gruden is abrasive. Gruden sh** talks about people. So what, the guy is a winner and a good coach. Every football coach I ever had talked garbage and yelled and screamed. He is not woke like the NFL, and he is not a racist. The NFL hung him out to dry on 5 emails out of 600,000 and set him up yo divert attention away from Dan Snyder and Goodell’s dealings. Now that Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL is proceeding, I have to believe a lot of wrong doing will be found through the discovery process. The NFL will regret messing with Chuckie.
March 29th, 2023 at 10:41 am
This WHOLE thing was brought on by Daniel Snyder. The biggest disgrace to the NFL !!! Like Sapp, I want ALL the e-mails exposed.
March 29th, 2023 at 10:47 am
Gruden did nothing wrong and that’s on GOD
March 29th, 2023 at 11:28 am
Awesome, Sapp!
Love the comments, too.
Go Bucs!!!
March 29th, 2023 at 11:44 am
Gruden was “cancelled” by the commish and owners. I hope he wins the court case and the NFL gets what is coming to them. Complete horse spit what happened to Gruden.
March 29th, 2023 at 12:26 pm
Buccaneer Bonzai,
Nothing you said is wrong, BUT, saying Gruden has not evolved is not necessarily true. His emails were years prior to them being made public. He may have evolved just fine. Still have not met a person who worked with ,knew or interacted with Gruden to say he was anything except a ball buster and occasional ass. Hard to believe he would be the only one in the NFL or world for that matter. No one has ever accused him of malice.
March 29th, 2023 at 2:03 pm
I love our big guy Warren Sapp. He’s the voice I listen to. Wonder what he thinks of Bloweszo.
March 29th, 2023 at 2:37 pm
The world loves Chicky more than NFL poohbahs and snowflakes do.
March 29th, 2023 at 2:45 pm
Jmark the team has failed to live up to expectations since then . Go check the record. If you think that’s “weak” then idk what to tell you. Sports curses are real.
March 29th, 2023 at 9:29 pm
I liked him as a coach. I loved him as a color guy on MNF – better than Madden, even. That’s where the real loss is. Fantastic insight being lost so that the ever-more-liberal ESPN can appeal to a woke crowd that doesn’t even watch football games!
March 29th, 2023 at 9:42 pm
I am not a fan of Gruden and was happy when he got fired as HC of the Bucs. But I am disgusted about how he was treated by the NFL He got totally screwed! I hope he wins big in the lawsuit.