With head coach Jon Gruden resigning in disgrace, the Las Vegas Raiders are at a major crossroads. Rich Bissacia is in charge for the interim, and the way forward begins with him. Gruden had to go, as his leaked emails showcased the ugliest side of both his worldview and his personality.

The problems highlighted go far beyond just Gruden, and this is a story about much more than football.  Overall, the team itself has certainly surpassed expectations this season, as they’re contending for the AFC West title. Entering the season, they had the longest odds of anyone to win the division. Perusing the odds at bonuscodes.us you would have seen the Kansas City Chiefs as heavy favorites, with the Raiders division title hopes often priced well north of +1000.

Defying the odds, they’re currently right in the thick of it, with the Chiefs and the surprise Los Angeles Chargers, contending for the AFC West title. However, the era of “Just Win, Baby” (a catch-phrase coined by the club’s deceased former owner Al Davis) is long over. With his son Mark Davis at the helm, it’s obviously still about winning, but doing it the right way.

As we’re about midway through the season, very few teams have beaten the Raiders, but the Chicago  Bears are one of them. CBS Sports/Showtime pundit Brandon Marshall played for several teams during his NFL career, with his time in Chicago highly productive and successful, statistically.

“This is bigger than Jon Gruden, this is bigger than the National Football League,” Marshall said on Inside the NFL, after the news broke.

“This is bigger than sports. It happens all the time. And there’s so many layers to it. And we could talk about it for the entire show. But this is bigger than Jon Gruden, and unfortunately, he is now another example of what not to do and how we shouldn’t conduct ourselves.”

Marshall is absolutely right, Gruden’s story is much more about society than it is about him, or the Raiders. On the same episode, NFL Writer and talking head Judy Battista pointed out what might be the most important aspect of this situation:

“What really stood out to me in reading the stories was the casual-ness of the emails.  He felt comfortable not just having those thoughts, but sharing those thoughts, putting them in writing, sending them to somebody, an executive with the team who was using his work email account.

“That tells you what the culture that they were operating in was like. He was totally comfortable that nobody was going to raise a fuss about it, that it probably would never come to light. That tells you that he’s not the only person that feels this way.  He’s certainly not the only person using this language. That’s a broader problem that the NFL has to address.”

That’s really the crux of it right there- Gruden made offensive remarks freely, as he believed his socially regressive views were completely systemic, and hence wouldn’t raise any eyebrows anywhere. That has to change, completely, and in the way forward, coaches need to be somebody that the younger generation can look up to, not down upon.

The head coach of the rival Chargers, Brandon Staley, said it best.

“I’m trying to earn the respect of our players, our fans, and it’s a sacred mantle for someone to call you coach,” he said in reaction to the Gruden news.

“When I was a little kid growing up, my parents were teachers and my dad was a coach. They just said, ‘Be everything you want your players to be.’  If you’re asking them to be committed, trustworthy, hardworking, unselfish, then you have to be the same way and you’ve got to live that example to the fullest every day because they’re looking at you.”

The most important thing for the next Raiders coach, once they decide who it will be, is character. It will have to be someone who is worth looking up to.

Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”

He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast.