Buccaneers Remove Jon Gruden From Team's Ring of Honor After Email Scandal

The Buccaneers are removing Jon Gruden from the team's Ring of Honor, Tampa Bay announced on Tuesday.

“The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have advocated for purposeful change in the areas of race relations, gender equality, diversity and inclusion for many years," the team said in a statement. "While we acknowledge Jon Gruden’s contributions on the field, his actions go against our core values as an organization. Therefore, he will no longer continue to be a member of the Buccaneers Ring of Honor.”

The announcement comes one day after the release of numerous offensive emails Gruden sent between 2010 to 2018. The Raiders head coach resigned from his position Monday evening.

The New York Times published a report Monday detailing a number of emails featuring misogynistic, racist and anti-LGBTQ language sent by Gruden. A Wall Street Journal report was released last week in which Gruden used a racist trope to describe executive director of the NFL Players Association DeMaurice Smith.

Gruden, who coached the Bucs from 2002 to 2008, led Tampa Bay to its first title with a win over the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII in 2002, becoming the youngest head coach to do so at 39. He remained the youngest until Mike Tomlin (Gruden's former defensive backs coach with the Bucs) did so in 2008 in Super Bowl XLIII. 

The Buccaneers inducted Gruden into the Ring of Honor in 2017 and in 2020 the team erected a statue of the former head coach in the lobby of the training facility.