Buccaneers Super Bowl champion head coach Jon Gruden gets big legal win over NFL

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden won a key victory in court on Monday in his ongoing legal battle with the National Football League.

Gruden, who coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2002-08 and the Las Vegas Raiders from 2018-21, resigned from his head coaching job with the Raiders in 2021 after a series of past emails sent by Gruden, which featured racist, sexist and homophobic comments, were leaked. Gruden's lawsuit alleges that the NFL pressured the Raiders to fire him by leaking these emails, and the NFL, in turn, asked to take Gruden's case to an arbitration that would have been overseen by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 ruling on Monday that the league's ability to take Gruden's case to arbitration doesn't apply to him as a former employee, which paves the way for Gruden to take his lawsuit to court against the NFL.

Gruden, now at Barstool Sports as a content creator, is seeking monetary damage from the lawsuit. He has expressed some interest in coaching, still, though — does this new lawsuit pave the way for the Buccaneers legend to join the NFL once again?

Could former Buccaneers HC Jon Gruden coach in the NFL again?

Former NFL Coaches Jon Gruden, left and Dave Campo, have a laugh during an NFL training camp session. | Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As it stands, this victory for Gruden doesn't help or hurt his ability to return to the NFL as a coach. If he really wanted to do that, he would like have to settle the legal things going on in this lawsuit with the NFL. NFL reporter Ian Rapoport spoke on this on the Dan Patrick Show in July, noting that while some teams would be open to Gruden becoming an offensive coordinator, the legal issues would needed to be sorted out before then.

"If somebody wants to hire him, my sense is if there would be things where everybody could get together on the legal side and figure it out and either compromise or settle it, handle it, whatever, perhaps. I’m sure there’s some interest," Rapoport said. "I haven’t heard any team particularly trying to hire him as a head coach. I did know there were some teams that thought about hiring him as a coordinator, which, would be hard to have a better hire than that as a coordinator."

"I haven't heard any team particularly trying to hire him as a head coach. I did know there were some teams that thought about hiring him as a coordinator... would be hard to have a better hire than that as a coordinator."

– @RapSheet on a potential #NFL return for Jon Gruden pic.twitter.com/7nCEDLAdxG
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) July 30, 2025

That would likely involve Gruden settling this lawsuit, which based on this key victory, he may not be willing to do. And if he isn't there's another route he could go that would let him coach and continue his lawsuit against the NFL — coaching in the college ranks.

"The only reason I really came here is I want to coach again," Gruden said while speaking with the Georgia Bulldogs in a YouTube video three days ago. "I'm being honest with you, I do not bulls**t, either. I want to coach again. I'd die to coach in the SEC. I would love it. I would f***ing love it."

It seems as if this option would fulfill Gruden's desire for coaching while also allowing him to continue his lawsuit against the NFL. He's been very successful at Barstool Sports, however, so we'll have to wait and see how his career shapes out in the future.

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