AS HE HOPPED on a call with Roger Goodell, Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis had no plans to fire his head coach.

It was the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. A few hours earlier, The Wall Street Journal had published a blockbuster story about an email Raiders coach Jon Gruden had sent 10 years earlier, when he worked as a color analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” Gruden, in an exchange with Washington’s general manager Bruce Allen, had called NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith “Dumboriss” and described him using a racist trope. To most observers, Gruden’s dismissal seemed like a matter of when, not if. But Davis hoped to — at the very least — slow down a hurricane from the center of the storm.

According to sources familiar with his thinking, Davis found the story’s timing suspicious. Why were emails coming out now? Who had leaked them? And who had the most to gain?

“It felt like a setup,” Davis would later tell an associate.

Even though league officials in New York and a few team owners had known about the Gruden emails for months, as part of the investigation into Commanders owner Dan Snyder and the toxic workplace culture inside his franchise, Davis had learned of them only the day before the Journal’s exclusive, when Raiders president Dan Ventrelle told him: “We’ve got a problem.”

After the Journal story, Davis polled current and former Raiders players and staff on how they felt about Gruden. Some wanted him gone; others didn’t. Davis knew Gruden could be crass and profane, the sources said, but in a relationship spanning more than two decades, he had no reason to believe Gruden was racist.

So when Davis and Ventrelle took the conference call with Goodell and NFL general counsel Jeff Pash, Davis leaned toward sticking by Gruden. But Davis felt immediate pressure. According to sources with direct knowledge of the call, Goodell repeatedly told Davis, “You have to do something.”

“What are you going to do?” Pash asked.

The statements and questions incensed Davis. He believed the league office had no purview to pressure an owner to fire a head coach, regardless of the circumstance.

“There’s more emails coming,” Goodell told Davis. “Something has to be done.”

When the call ended, Davis turned to Ventrelle.

“Motherf—er,” Davis said in exasperation.

On Monday, Oct. 11, The New York Times published a story revealing new emails in which Gruden wrote that Goodell was “clueless” and “anti-football” and described him in anti-gay and misogynistic terms. That evening, Gruden resigned, pushed by Davis. Gruden would soon file a lawsuit against the NFL and Goodell that accused the commissioner of “directly leaking” his emails to harm his reputation and force him out, something league officials have repeatedly denied.

What angered Davis more than anything, he later said, was being surprised by the emails months after Goodell, Pash and other owners, including Snyder, knew about them. It seemed to Davis as if he and the Raiders were collateral damage in what he saw as Goodell’s yearslong effort to protect Dan Snyder, of all owners, at all costs.

“F— the NFL,” Davis later told Gruden. “And f— Dan Snyder.”

FIFTEEN DAYS AFTER Gruden resigned under pressure, Goodell denied in a closed-door, owners-only meeting in midtown Manhattan that he or anyone in the league office had leaked the damning emails. The focus of speculation around the league turned to Snyder. In October 2022, ESPN reported that the league believed Snyder was behind the leaks. A congressional report last December contained testimony that also pointed toward the Commanders as the source of the leak.

Months of interviews with executives, lawyers, agents, and league and team officials, most of whom requested anonymity, reveal that a larger cast of people might have played a role in the leaking. Those accused by the sources include:

Top NFL executives, including Goodell. Sources, including one in ownership, told ESPN that NFL executives approved the release of some emails. Four owners told ESPN they believe Goodell was personally involved. NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy repeated the league’s denial, in public and in legal responses, that it was responsible. “Neither the NFL nor the commissioner leaked Coach Gruden’s offensive emails,” McCarthy told ESPN. In a statement to ESPN, Gruden said, “it’s ridiculous the league thought they could cherry-pick emails from years ago, when I wasn’t even a coach and try to end my career.” He added: “At a minimum, I deserved the opportunity to respond and receive some due process.”

NFL Players Association chief DeMaurice Smith. Smith bragged that he was responsible for leaking the racist email referring to him, an associate with direct knowledge told ESPN. The leaked email was published on the same day Smith faced a union vote to retain his job. Smith declined to comment through union spokesperson George Atallah.

Snyder, in an operation run by his New York law firm Reed Smith and with help from Desiree Perez, the CEO of Roc Nation, which has a $25 million contract to help the NFL on social justice issues. A Reed Smith lawyer told one source, before and after the leaks, about the firm’s involvement and Perez’s alleged role, which the source did not define. Lawyers with direct knowledge of Reed Smith operations and Perez’s dual role — as an influential NFL consultant and a Snyder confidant — told ESPN the group dusted off tactics it had used in Alex Rodriguez’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball years ago.