Feb. 5, 2023
TRANSCRIPT, 2023 Super Bowl, State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., postgame
TERRY BRADSHAW, FOX: Let’s get Dan Snyder up here. Dan, your team has turned everything around. You hired Ron Rivera, who was named Coach of the Year in 2021. You drafted Chase Young, who’s the MVP of today’s game — just the 10th time in Super Bowl history a defensive player has won the award. And last year you went out and got Aaron Rodgers to bring it all together, and you’re here now with the Lombardi Trophy — the fourth in team history, and the first under your ownership. You’ve had to go through so much the last few years. What has it been like for you to go through all that, and now win it all on the other side?
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At this point, waiting to hear the answer of what Snyder “has gone through,” if you’re still a fan of the Washington Football Team, you’ll have two choices.
One, hurl — in the physical sense, like throwing your WFT helmet/football/burgundy and gold tchotchkes in the air in celebration.
Two, hurl — in the scatological sense, as in losing the burger/dip/pizza/chips/salsa you inhaled during the game.
Maybe both.
This is, now, a thing that could happen in the next few years – after the NFL, to the surprise of absolutely no one with a functioning cortex and basal ganglia, threw a stuffed pillow at Washington’s owner Thursday. There were, apparently, no books at Roger Goodell’s disposal. The league, like certain folks on Capitol Hill when it comes to certain topics, was very troubled by what happened on Snyder’s watch, in his building, to his female employees, for years and years. Very troubled.
But, Dan Snyder still owns the team. If Washington continues on its trajectory back toward the top of the NFL under Rivera, et al., the above scenario is no pipe dream. You will have to grind your teeth and cheer.
Wait, what did you think was going to happen? Did you really think the NFL was going to force him out?
The NFL wouldn’t just need a smoking gun to push one of its billionaire owners out of the club. It would need a written confession and video and compressed audio and fingerprints — and it would then, maybe, give the matter serious consideration. There also was no stripping the team of future draft picks, or anything else that resembles true punishment for the embarrassing, dangerous and awful workplace Snyder did nothing to stop.
The league, having the good graces not to call it a “fine,” announced the team will pay $10 million “to support organizations committed to character education, anti-bullying, healthy relationships and related topics.”
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Ten million dollars!
Except the WFT is currently valued at a cool $3.5 billion by Forbes, making it the 19th-richest sports franchise in the world. So, a $10 million whatever-you-call-it isn’t going to put Dan Snyder into receivership. Even Dr. Evil knows that’s next to nothing for someone of Snyder’s largesse.
Beth Wilkinson’s months-long investigation into the WFT’s previous workplace environment concluded with the issuing of an NFL-breaded summary of the independent investigator’s findings, there being no written report.
Huh? No written report?
Even Mariska Hargitay files a written report at the end of “Law & Order: SVU.”
Why on Earth would you not write down everything you discovered over the last 11 months? What investigation doesn’t produce a white paper? The league told reporters on a conference call that there were concerns about maintaining the confidentiality of some of the witnesses, but … isn’t that the baseline? Isn’t that what you start with? ‘How do we protect the people telling us all this stuff, but still get their testimony into the public record?’ This wasn’t the first legal rodeo for anyone involved.
There were specific allegations of misconduct levied against Snyder himself. Were they found to be true? If so,that has to be reported. Were they found to be false? If so, shouldn’t they say?
The oddness of that aside, the key findings of Wilkinson’s report corroborated the reporting, primarily in The Washington Post, about the “very toxic” work environment for women who worked for the team in Ashburn, Va., during much of the previous decade.
On the basis of Wilkinson’s investigation, Goodell, the NFL said, “concluded that for many years the workplace environment at the Washington Football Team, both generally and particularly for women, was highly unprofessional. Bullying and intimidation frequently took place and many described the culture as one of fear, and numerous female employees reported having experienced sexual harassment and a general lack of respect in the workplace.”
Wow! Whoever had oversight of something that awful should lose their job! No?
Washington owner Daniel Snyder and his wife Tanya look on during coach Ron Rivera’s introductory press conference on Jan. 2, 2020. (Brad Mills / USA Today)
Wilkinson made 10 recommendations to further the real improvements the team has made in diversity in its front office over the last year-plus, from the hiring of Rivera and GM Martin Mayhew on the football side of the building to the hiring of team president Jason Wright, chief people officer Andre Chambers, senior vice president of external engagement and communication Julie Jensen, senior VP of media and content Julie Donaldson and others. (Full disclosure: Donaldson’s a pal. I do her in-house daily show on occasion.)
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No fair person can surmise that the team’s external outreach and its representations at all the key touchpoints with the public, isn’t vastly different — and better — than it was a year ago.
But the team is already implementing, at various stages, most of those recommendations.
And, again, Snyder still owns the team.
In a statement, he expressed “great remorse for the people who had difficult, even traumatic, experiences while working (for the organization). I’m truly sorry for that. I can’t turn back the clock, but I promise that nobody who works here will ever have that kind of experience again, at least not as long as Tanya and I are the owners of the team.”
He will, supposedly, be removed from the day-to-day operations of the team “for at least the next several months,” the NFL announced, while his wife, Tanya — installed earlier this week as co-CEO, along with her husband — assumes the team’s top decision-making position. Dan Snyder, according to the league, will spend that unspecified period working on “a new stadium plan and other matters.”
Now, look, I don’t know Tanya Snyder. I have no reason to think she’s dishonest or not above board. But I’m also sure that, being married, she speaks with her husband on occasion. They may even discuss the football team they now co-CEO.
So, how exactly is the NFL going to enforce this “ban” on Dan Snyder making the final call on things during this, again, unspecified amount of time? Will it check his, and then her, cellphone records? Not to be a noodge, but even if the NFL did, what would keep Tanya Snyder, from, say, handing her cellphone to her husband at an especially sensitive time — a free-agent signing, a trade, etc. — to get around said ban? (There are, also, things called “burner phones.” They’re in just about all the TMZ stories.)
Even if the Snyders wind up being above reproach, the bottom line remains the bottom line. He’s not going anywhere. In another league, another owner whose team has been dreadful for most of his watch, the Phoenix Suns’ Robert Sarver, now has a team in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1993. (The last time the WFT went to the Super Bowl was in … 1992.) Suns fans probably don’t care much that Sarver’s rep is being cleansed as the franchise gets its groove back.
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Similarly, all you can do now is put your energy into supporting good people like Rivera, Young, Terry McLaurin, Jonathan Allen and the other new faces in Ashburn, in front of and behind the scenes, who are working to improve the team’s culture, to give you a team in which you can be proud. They are putting in real labor.
And if this thing goes to Pluto in a year or two, be ready to hurl. Your choice.
(Photo: John McDonnell / The Washington Post via Getty Images)
David Aldridge is a senior columnist for The Athletic. He has worked for nearly 30 years covering the NBA and other sports for Turner, ESPN, and the Washington Post. In 2016, he received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Legacy Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. He lives in Washington, D.C. Follow David on Twitter @davidaldridgedc
