Steelers’ Mike Tomlin 'saddened’ by situation involving mentor Jon Gruden’s resignation

Speaking to media about 16 hours after Jon Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said he was “saddened” by the circumstances that involved language Gruden used in emails sent several years ago.

Tomlin was defensive backs coach under Gruden for four seasons from 2002-05 when Gruden was head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Gruden was the second of three head coaches Tomlin worked under in the NFL before his hiring by the Steelers in 2007, and Tomlin has spoken highly of Gruden in the past.

In emails leaked to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that were discovered via an NFL investigation into the Washington Football Team, Gruden was found to have used several offensive terms in referring to women, minorities, homosexuals and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Gruden’s resignation — reportedly at the behest of Raiders owner Mark Davis — came Monday night.

“I’m just saddened by it,” Tomlin said. “I’m saddened for the Raiders organization. I’m saddened for the people that were offended by it. I’m saddened for Coach Gruden. It’s a sad commentary, and that’s really the only opinion I care to share at this juncture.”

Gruden was in the fourth season of a reported 10-year, $100 million contract agreed to with the Raiders in 2018. He was coach of the then-Oakland Raiders from 1998-2001 and of the Bucs from 2002-2008 before working as an analyst on “Monday Night Football” for nine seasons in advance of his return to the Raiders.

Tomlin was part of the staff with Gruden when the Bucs won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2002 season.

During the week leading up to last month’s meeting between the Steelers and Raiders, Tomlin complimented Gruden’s football acumen and spoke of how tutelage under Gruden influenced him in his work as a head coach.

“Gruden has no fear,” Tomlin said Sept. 14. “He doesn’t. He looks at an issue or a problem, and he sees it as an opportunity. I worked for him for four years. You can’t fake that. It’s every day from him. I’ve probably always generally had that mentality, but he helped me hone it as a vocation, as a coach.

“His can-do approach, the positive energy that he consistently brings to whatever challenge that the job presents helped me grow in a big way as a coach when I worked for him as a young guy, for sure.”

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