Mike Jones of The Athletic recently profiled Washington Commanders team president Jason Wright. It was an interesting look at Washington’s president of three years, who has had one of the most challenging jobs in sports:
Not only has Wright had to navigate multiple controversies, but he also accepted the role of Washington president just as the team had announced a name change.
Wright has drawn the ire of many of the team’s disgruntled fans for things that were out of his control. But other things were under his control, such as the team’s repeated failures to properly honor team legend, the late Sean Taylor. Don’t forget some of the errors when the team announced it was adding 10 more players to the “90 Greatest” list to celebrate 90 years as an NFL franchise.
Jones’s story covers it all. And while fans may view Wright as an outsider, he has the same goal as many of the team’s longtime fans. He wants to turn Washington back into a winner, bring the fans back, find a new stadium and use football — specifically Washington Commanders football — as a way to unite the community.
While Wright has made mistakes, he’s owned them. He’s also done good things, too.
But the most interesting nugget from The Athletic’s profile on Wright was this passage:
Meanwhile, although Wright aspires to one day run both the business and football sides of an organization, he says his goals in Washington don’t include that. He aims to simply support coach Ron Rivera, general manager Martin Mayhew and their assistants.
It’s not a surprise that Wright would want complete control of a team. After all, most team presidents are over the entire time, not just the business side. Remember, Wright played seven years in the NFL.
While Wright said his goals in Washington don’t include running the football side, Jones was recently a guest on the “Standig Room Only” podcast with Ben Standig, and he discussed Wright’s potential goals.
“He claims that his interest is not to do that in Washington, that there is too much on his plate right now,” Jones said. “But somewhere down the road in an organization. Now, talking to people around the league, there is definitely aspirations for him; they gather he wants to take over the football operations here as well. But, you know Jason will say one thing behind the scenes, though; we’ll see. I do think that you’re a long way from being able to oversee just because of how much of a mess to clean up still on the other side of the field.”
Jones talked about head coach Ron Rivera’s working relationship with Wright and Wright praised Rivera for always helping him. However, interestingly, Rivera declined to speak to Jones for this specific story on Wright.
Why? It could be nothing bad, but Jones told Standig he was surprised and noted the upcoming ownership change may have some not wanting to go on the record.
Washington fans would be interested to know something else Jones said on Standig’s podcast.
“From what I’ve gathered, he probably would have been in favor of pursuing Lamar Jackson if it was his call,” Jones said.
Considering Wright runs the business side, that shouldn’t be surprising. A trade for Jackson would’ve given a jolt to the business and football side of the building. But, it was never happening.