Hypocrite Bucs Remove Gruden from Ring of Honor

CLAY: Buck, I don’t know if you saw this story, but there are a couple things about it that just perfectly epitomize the hypocrisy of the era in which we’re living. Jon Gruden was fired over emails that were uncovered as part of an investigation into the culture surrounding the Washington Redskins. Used to be the Redskins. Now the Washington football team. They don’t even have a team mascot now because everybody’s offended by mascot names.

But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — we’ve got a lot of people that listen to us in Florida — Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they put his name on the ring of honor surrounding the football field. After these emails came out where he used some gay slurs in emails where people were uncomfortable with his language choice. But let me just make it clear these were emails that only have come out — some of them over a decade old — because of this other investigation that had nothing to do Jon Gruden. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced that they are pulling all of Jon Gruden’s connection effectively to the overall team and that they find his behavior to be totally unacceptable.

One of our writers at OutKick, Armando Salguero, who is an NFL Hall of Fame writer, he just penned a really good piece. And he said, wait a minute. The Bucs actually still have Warren Sapp’s name up on their ring of honor. Warren Sapp, who was a defensive tackle, not only is he still on the ring of honor, Buck, but he was arrested for soliciting and assaulting a prostitute in Arizona and also arrested on a domestic battery charge in Nevada. And he pled guilty to the Arizona charges, okay? He’s also failed to pay his tax bill, alimony, and child support. At one point he owed over a million dollars to the IRS. That seems like maybe a more significant thing that sending an email with inappropriate words in it.

Currently, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers also employ Antonio Brown, who has been accused of sexual assault and also called his boss a cracker, which is obviously a racial slur. And they also employ Richard Sherman, who was just this off-season arrested for DUI, reckless endangerment of roadway workers, criminal trespass, resisting arrest, malicious mischief, and he’s got five charges that are pending against him right now of a criminal nature.

BUCK: Thought crimes are what you get you canceled, Clay.

CLAY: How crazy is this?

BUCK: This the world that the left has created in America. This is the reality of the system as they enforce it against us. And I noted this to you beforehand — and I don’t follow much of the sports stuff as you know although I did go to my first ever SEC football game.

CLAY: Big time Alabama football fan, Buck Sexton.

BUCK: Roll Tide. But I’m just gonna tell you, they keep running these stories that will have a headline like, “And Gruden said something nasty about Joe Biden.” Like, that’s actually a thing that’s reported on.

CLAY: Yeah, that’s true.

BUCK: Back when Biden was VP, folks, just so you know this is a while ago — as if that is somehow newsworthy. I mean, if someone saw my text messages to friends about Joe Biden, you know, there would be things about how I don’t think Joe Biden’s doing a very good job. I’ll put it to you that way.

And yet this is important to them — this is why I bring it up — because they’re signaling to everybody, the media signals, “Oh, Gruden, he’s not just a white guy who said things you’re not allowed to say. He’s a white conservative or conservative-ish guy,” which means total annihilation is called for, right? He’s not a Biden, Obama, Hillary voter who said bad things, you know, in a conversation in private. He’s a right-wing guy. That’s when you have to get to the Soviet level of taking a razor blade to cut out the names in the register book or whatever, you know, make sure that he’s erased from history entirely.

CLAY: Yeah. And look. The ring of honor may not be a significant thing, but it’s evidence of the selective application of what is acceptable in society today. And we’re going to erase you if you step outside of the left-wing prescribed materials, even if it’s decade-old emails. And, by the way, we’re not going to apply the same standard retroactively that we’re applying to Jon Gruden to anyone else aka Warren Sapp or even apply that same standard today to Antonio Brown or Richard Sherman.

Now, look. I believe everybody observes the opportunity to make multiple mistakes. I don’t believe in cancel cultural, period. But to your point, Buck, I think we need to call out the hypocrisy of it even though it is frustrating to have that hypocrisy out there — for what reason? Because every time it happens a few more people get red pilled and take a step back and say, this isn’t right. Enough of those people and eventually you start kicking ass in elections, which I think and hope is gonna happen next month in Virginia and roll on into the midterms.

BUCK: Hypocrisy is the rule. The problem is this is the way it goes, right? They don’t even try to act like they have the same standards applying to people. It all depends on what the left thinks about an individual’s status and where they fall in the hierarchy of oppression.