
DALLAS—Midway through tonight’s Monday Night Football game between the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, ESPN commentator Jon Gruden reportedly shared a bizarre and totally unprompted two-minute-long story about secretly watching his younger brother, current Redskins head coach Jay Gruden, undress as a child. “I’ll tell you what, when we were kids I hid in Jay’s closet for what must have been an hour, just waiting for him to come back to his room from the shower so I could see him without any clothes on,” Gruden said to a seemingly stunned and utterly silent Mike Tirico as the game continued on screen. “He was looking great even as a 10-year-old, and I just sat there—dead quiet and not moving a muscle—staring at him through the little slits in the closet door. What can I say, it was just exhilarating, watching your little brother totally naked without him knowing. It’s still so vivid in my mind— the sight of his small, supple body as he toweled off, put on clothes, and then played with his action figures. To this day, I don’t think he knows about it, and my parents certainly never found out. I don’t know, maybe part of me wanted to get caught. Maybe part of me wanted him to open that closet door and find me crouched there in the dark. But look, I have no doubt Jay will get it right for the Redskins this season. He’s one heck of a football coach.” Following the conclusion of Gruden’s anecdote, sources confirmed that nearly 30 seconds of dead air passed before Tirico abruptly said, “Okay, third and short for the Cowboys,” and resumed the game’s commentary.