“Saturday Night Live” put its satirical mirror up to the NFL as the pro football league tries to recover from a scandal, in which the former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders was discovered to have sent racist, misogynistic and homophobic emails in recent years.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, played by Colin Jost, held a news conference with team officials and others.
“I assure you all 32 teams in our league understand that diversity is our strength, and I know that our Black coaches would agree,” Goodell said. “Both of them.”
Goodell allowed fired Raiders coach Jon Gruden to address the media because he begged, he said. “And you know how much I hate seeing someone kneel,” Goodell said.
Gruden, played by James Austin Johnson, said he didn’t mean to use hateful language in the emails, leaked to the New York Times. “This sounds like a stretch, but have you ever gotten burned by autocorrect?” he said.
Pete Davidson was introduced as a replacement coach, but he was quickly ousted.
“They just found my emails too, and they are so much worse than the old coach’s,” he said. “I started an email chain called, ‘Hey, let’s rank the races.'”
