I’d like to believe this is our last chronicle of all the awful and stupid things Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder has done. In my heart, I know it won’t be.
Ostensibly, this is a breakdown of the latest reported transgressions from ESPN’s reporting of the ongoing strip mining of toxic sludge that has permeated every layer of Snyder’s franchise. It’s a recounting of the leaked emails that cost Jon Gruden his job as head coach of a totally different team and how Snyder’s alleged impatience eventually led to his own ousting after a series of passive not-technically-threats to NFL owners and officials. In short, emails discovered during a joint investigation into Washington’s toxic work environment — specifically, emails Gruden wrote using racist and homophobic language — were leaked to the press and had a still-catalyzing reaction.
There’s a lot of good stuff in there as well, from petty personal grudges to a shrugging game of “not me” among millionaires to, delightfully, Sean Payton calling Gruden a “dumb[expletive]” for paying league fines. This was never going to be a pleasant story, but at least with the worst person in the NFL finally, probably, on his way out, there was a silver lining.
But while Snyder’s alleged role in the leaks forced him into the imminent sale of the franchise he quickly smothered — a sale that will bring him more than $6 billion after buying the team for $750 million — it seems a given that the loudest braying jackass in a pasture made specifically for similarly minded animals won’t go quietly into his good night. Snyder may not own his team after 2024, (or maybe he will, it’s Dan Snyder, neither common sense nor sound logic play a role here). Either way, his truly depressing incapacity to learn from mistakes or better himself in any way makes it a near certainty that we will, sometime in the future, once again require a digest of all the terrible things he’s done.
This is probably just another volume in the encyclopedia of Snyder disasters. Let’s trace the story from its origin — amazingly, as always, reported by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. — and figure out whose lives Dan Snyder ruined this time.
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