The Draw Play

You know what sucks? Dan Snyder basically came out of all of the past few years of drama in a more secure position. Years upon years of scrutiny and exceptionally warranted criticism and now his position is stronger than ever.

-He pissed off all his minority team owners to the point where they got disgusted and bailed. So he bought their shares and now owns 100% of the team.
-The team exploited cheerleaders and basically had the story get swept under the rug
-The story about the vile culture resulted in…a ten million dollar fine. Basically pocket change to a billionaire. Snyder got a bigger fine for not colluding with the owners on the uncapped year than he did for running an organization with a horrible toxic culture.

The only thing you could claim he lost was the battle over the name, which he only lost because corporate sponsors put the pressure on. He didn’t lose due to any moral argument, just the threat to his wallet mattered. But everyone loves the Washington Football Team name (myself included) and the full rebrand that is coming will likely spell more good press.

Now, after the pathetic investigation into the organization ended in a tiny fine, Snyder has decided to shove his wife in front of the bullets to make it look like he cares about changing the culture and making a difference. Instead of just one bad Snyder running the team, there are two! Any hope the fans may have had that all this combined pressure might be enough to kick Snyder to the curb is dead. He’s more powerful than ever. With any other team, having a woman become co-CEO, even if it is the owner’s wife, might be cause for faint praise. A smidge of equality. With Snyder, and everything that’s happened, it’s blatantly transparent how cynical it is. Besides, I’m sure Tanya is cut from the same cloth as her husband. Dan isn’t a hands-off owner, she had to be relatively privy if not involved with pretty much everything that went toxic and wrong. I’m sure she knew the culture was toxic too. She’s been used as a shield for criticism before this.

Her most notable accomplishment is starting the whole pink breast cancer awareness thing, which despite how gross that eventually got, I will give her credit for. There is a chance she’ll be a decent person in charge. But she’s married to an arrogant evil cave troll so my sympathies only go so far. She’s not replacing Dan, she’s just taking a more center stage role so he can hide behind the curtains and continue to set the team on fire.

If the past few years couldn’t oust Snyder nothing will. I’m of the firm belief that the other owners probably don’t like Snyder that much (A lot of stories paint him as a young snivley Jerry Jones wannabe with little respect among his peers) but they will never actually force him out Donald Sterling style because that sets a precedent for the rest of them. If you can kick out one owner for being a bad person, every other owner is at risk of the same. You know they’ve all got substantial skeletons. So they’ll circle the wagons around a guy they don’t even like to protect their own. It makes me wonder just how bad the Jerry Richardson case must have been. He actually did sorta get run out of town during #metoo, but he sold the team extremely quickly right before anyone could even get details on the story. There has to be more to it than that.

Anyway change the name to the Washington Weasles for how they keep escaping certain death.