Tag: Daniel Snyder

Washington coach Ron Rivera has experience fixing a scandal-riddled organization

Ron Rivera worked through the scandal in Carolina and now has to do the same in Washington.

Talk about being in the wrong organization, not once but twice. That is how current Washington coach Ron Rivera has to feel.

In a text message to ESPN’s John Keim, first-year Washington coach Rivera said that the organization’s culture would change moving forward.

“Biggest thing is that we have to move forward from this and make sure everybody understands we have policies that we will follow and that we have an open door policy with no retribution,” Rivera said. “Plus my daughter works for the team and I sure as hell am not going to allow any of this!”

Rivera was coach of the Carolina Panthers when the scandal broke and original owner Jerry Richardson had to sell the team.

On December 17, 2017, Sports Illustrated reported that “at least four former Panthers employees have received ‘significant’ monetary settlements due to inappropriate workplace comments and conduct by owner Jerry Richardson, including sexually suggestive language and behavior, and on at least one occasion directing a racial slur at an African-American Panthers scout.” According to the anonymous sources which were the basis for the article, Richardson asked women in the team offices to “turn around so he could admire their backsides” on Casual Friday, among other “disturbing” office behavior.

Less than three years later, Rivera finds himself head coach of another team caught up in a massive scandal.

Former Washington Redskins employee Emily Applegate, and 14 other female employees who spoke on terms of anonymity, have alleged that the franchise has long worked under a toxic spell of serial sexual harassment and verbal abuse. More than one female sports reporter has added their names to that list.

Rivera was part of the process that righted the organization in Carolina. He seems to be an excellent person to be part of trying to rebuild what has become a disgraced Washington NFL franchise.

This comes days after the team announced it would find a new nickname despite controversial owner Daniel Snyder calling the current one a “badge of honor,” and saying he would “NEVER” change it. When companies threatened to pull millions out of their relationship with the team and Washington merchandise no longer being sold by massive businesses, that tune quickly changed.

 

The NFL has no choice but to force Daniel Snyder to sell the Washington team

Do the right thing, Roger (and other owners.)

After days of wild speculation, the Washington Post published its bombshell report on the Washington NFL team’s toxic culture. The scope of the story didn’t match the scope of the internet’s wild conspiracy theories. There was no ref bribing or reporters catphishing team employees for scoops.

No, it was far more sinister than that.

Fifteen women who worked for the team said they were sexually harassed and verbally abused by several team employees, including former director of pro personnel Alex Santos and play-by-play man/senior vice president of content Larry Michael. The story features horrifying accounts from a number of former employees and reporters who covered the team.

Via The Washington Post:

“The allegations raised by [former employee Emily] Applegate and others — running from 2006 to 2019 — span most of Snyder’s tenure as owner and fall into two categories: unwelcome overtures or comments of a sexual nature, and exhortations to wear revealing clothing and flirt with clients to close sales deals.”

If you’ve been listening to women, this type of environment being tolerated by a professional sports organization should not come as a surprise. That this particular organization — and surely it’s not the only one — was tolerating it should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Snyder showed what little regard he had for women when he signed Reuben Foster just days after the linebacker’s second domestic violence arrest. And that came just months after a New York Times report alleged team execs required cheerleaders to pose topless during photoshoots attended by FedEx Field suite owners. The cheerleaders were also told to accompany employees of sponsors on trips to nightclubs.

Via The New York Times:

Their participation did not involve sex, the cheerleaders said, but they felt as if the arrangement amounted to “pimping us out.” What bothered them was their team director’s demand that they go as sex symbols to please male sponsors, which they did not believe should be a part of their job.

Unlike former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who was forced to sell his team in 2018, Snyder was not directly implicated in any of this behavior, but there’s no way he was completely oblivious to the toxicity that pervaded his franchise. And if he was oblivious to it, that might actually be worse. As Roger Goodell told the Saints before doling out punishment for Bountygate, “Ignorance is not an excuse.”

Ignorance clearly isn’t the problem in Washington. It’s apathy. The same apathy left Snyder unaffected by the Native American groups that were imploring him to change the team’s racist name for decades (he only acquiesced when sponsors threaten to hurt his bottom line.)

Even if Snyder had been unaware of this pattern of abusive behavior, you’d think the 2018 New York Times story would have set off some alarm bells and sparked some sort of internal investigation — the kind of internal investigation the team has now launched after they were notified by the Post of the allegations featured in the story published Thursday. But nope. Snyder turned a blind eye to it all, and, therefore, allowed it to persist.

Complain about “cancel culture” all you want. The fact is, Daniel Snyder has proven again and again that he’s not someone the league should want owning one of its teams. He’s created the opposite of the culture the league should be trying to cultivate and the other owners have a right to protect the league.

Now the focus shifts to the NFL and Goodell, who constantly tries to convince us this league cares about women and people of color. On multiple occasions, this owner has shown us he does not care about either. That shouldn’t be tolerated and Snyder should be forced out, as many NFL fans are now calling for.

Will Goodell take this opportunity to prove his words weren’t hollow? If he doesn’t, it’s going to be hard to take him, or this league, seriously on any of these matters going forward. We already expect them to get so many things wrong — remember when they acknowledged their mistake in how they treated protesting players without even mentioning Colin Kaepernick? — but this appears to be a real chance to make a significant and lasting change.

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Washington franchise agrees to drop the Redskins nickname

They have been the Redskins since 1933

The Washington Redskins are no more. Owner Daniel Snyder and the team revealed on Monday that the team is dropping the nickname and imagery that has been the team’s identity since 1933.

The organization concluded in a recent research study that the nickname needed to go. The term “Redskin” is often used as a racial slur against Native Americans, and the team has been under pressure for years to change the offensive name.

The replacement name has yet to be revealed. Based on social media and speculation from sports talk radio, the front-runners for the new name appear to be “Redtails” and “Warriors”.

Report: Washington NFL team plans to announce it will make nickname change Monday

Washington’s NFL team will announce Monday it plans to make a nickname change.

There will be a name change Monday for Washington’s NFL team, per a SportsBusinessJournal report.

However, the mystery will remain as the “the new nickname will not be announced immediately because trademark issues are pending.”

The previous nickname, which has been considered racist and offensive for years, will be “retired,” according to the SBJ report. Team owner Daniel Snyder stubbornly had stuck to the belief it was a “badge of honor” and he would never change it.

The report:

The Redskins intend to announce on Monday that the team will retire its nickname, two sources said, 11 days after naming-rights sponsor FedEx’s public statement asking for a change to the controversial moniker. The new nickname will not be announced immediately because trademark issues are pending, the sources said, but insiders were told today that the “thorough review” announced July 3 has concluded. The team felt it was important to remove any doubts as to the future of the name, one source said.

The timeline for announcing a new name was unclear, but the sense of urgency inside the organization is clear. In a private letter on the same day as its public statement, FedEx threatened to take its name off the team’s Landover, Md., stadium after the end of the season if the name was not changed. Pepsi, Bank of America and Nike later joined with their own public statements, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also said he was supportive of the review. A Redskins spokesperson did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Yahoo later added: In a sign that the NFL’s Washington franchise has committed itself to a new name, the league has asked partners to begin scrubbing “Redskins” from their platforms in anticipation of a change …

Redskins coach Ron Rivera says it would be ‘awesome’ if team name changes before new season

Ron Rivera says he’s been working with Daniel Snyder on a new team name.

Washington’s NFL team could be closing in on determining a new nickname, and new head coach Ron Rivera is hopeful that the name could be changed in time for the 2020 season.

After stadium sponsor FedEx publicly requested that Daniel Snyder’s “team in Washington” change its name, the Redskins announced on Friday that the team would initiate a “thorough review of the team’s name.” In 2013, Snyder vowed that the name would “never” change, but according to the latest update from Rivera, it seems like a change could now be an inevitability.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Rivera said that he and Snyder have been working on potential nicknames, and without disclosing the options, Rivera said there are two that he likes.

Via the Washington Post:

“If we get it done in time for the season, it would be awesome…. We came up with a couple of names – two of them I really like.”

Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins, for one, likes the name Redtails, which would be a tribute to the legendary Tuskegee Airmen.

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Nike will not carry Washington D.C.’s NFL team’s merchandise without a name change

Get ready for the end of “The Redskins.” because corporate pressure is coming home to roost.

According to a report from Ben Standig and Rhiannon Walker of The Athletic, Nike has decided that it will not carry any merchandise featuring the National Football League team based in the nation’s capital — currently known as the Redskins — until there is a name change.

“A source at Nike, the NFL’s official uniform provider, told The Athletic that the company will not feature Washington gear until the team name is changed,” the article indicated. “Nike anticipates a change soon because it would take time for them to remake the jerseys and provide them to distributors.”

Pressure on the franchise and owner Daniel Snyder has never been more high-pitched. Nike pulled all its Redskins merchandise this week. This after 87 different shareholders and investment firms, whose financial involvement totals more than $620 billion in assets, asked Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo to end their business relationships with the team over the name. FedEx, which controls naming rights to the team’s stadium, has come out and asked for a name change.

Snyder, who has owned the team since 1999, has said in the past that he would never change the name, but he’s also never had corporate entities wielding their power over the team — and the league — as they are now.

Which is why the team sent out an announcement on Friday that it was conducting a “thorough review” of the name.

Nike is currently the NFL’s manufacturer for uniforms and sideline apparel, and is contracted through 2028.

Why Daniel Snyder should follow the Wizards’ lead and drop the ‘Redskins’ name

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder should learn from former Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin and change his team’s name.

Sometimes, the decision to change the name of a sports team comes about through political expediency. At other times, international tragedy can be the catalyst.

On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin spoke at a Tel Aviv peace rally. As he walked off the stage to his motorcade, moving past throngs of supporters overjoyed by the first signs of Israeli-Palestinian peace in years, he was shot twice in the back and arm, and died in surgery hours later.

Abe Pollin, Rabin’s close friend and the then-owner of the Washington D.C. NBA team, heard the news soon after. Four days after Rabin’s funeral, Pollin announced that his team — the Washington Bullets — would be changing their name.

“My friend was shot in the back by bullets,” Pollin said, when the decision was announced. “The name ‘Bullets’ is no longer appropriate for a sports team.”

Pollin had already been thinking of changing the name of the team he’d owned since 1964, saying to the Washington Post’s Richard Justice in May, 1995 that “We haven’t made a final decision. In the old days, our motto was ‘Faster than a speeding Bullet.’ That’s how we were envisioned in Baltimore (the team moved from Baltimore to D.C. in 1973). Today the connotation is a little different. It’s connected with so many horrible things that people do with guns and bullets. I don’t know. We’re considering it. We’ll make a decision this summer.”

Rabin’s assassination forced his friend’s hand, but given the onslaught of gun violence in America, Pollin had already headed in that direction. The name change became official in 1997, and the Washington NBA team has been the Wizards ever since.

“If I save one life, make a change in one life,” Pollin concluded, “it’ll be worth it.”

Not that everyone saw the wisdom in it.

“Personally, I think the association between the name of the local basketball team and horrible things that people do with guns is a reach,” then-Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon wrote. “And if there’s ever a time to change it, now would be that time, what with Chris Webber and Juwan Howard aboard and new uniforms and a new downtown arena in the works.”

Those who support Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s decision to keep his team’s name may argue the same things — that there’s no real connection between the name and all the horrible things that have happened to Native Americans over the centuries. But it’s a flimsy argument, as is the argument that one shouldn’t tear a team’s tradition down, no matter how repugnant the name that upholds that tradition might be.

In truth, the Redskins don’t just have the attendant racism of the name. The team also has one of sports’ worst histories regarding integration. Former owner George Preston Marshall was the man behind the ban of all Black athletes from the NFL from 1934 through 1945, and it was only through the efforts of Stewart L. Udall, John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, that Marshall finally integrated his team… in 1961.

There is no positive benefit to retaining the Redskins name, especially in an America that is torn apart by police brutality, gun violence, and politically-charged divisiveness. As Pollin astutely ascertained, that kind of violent tragedy can (and must) be a catalyst for change.

It’s time for Daniel Snyder to follow Pollin’s lead.

Is Dan Snyder all-in on Chase Young over Tua Tagovailoa?

Has Dan Snyder made his decision?

It has always seemed like the Tua Tagovailoa talk around the Washington Redskins in the 2020 NFL draft was just smoke.

Especially with a player like Chase Young available at No. 2.

That idea continues to emerge the closer we get to the draft. Sports Illustrated’s Kalyn Kahler spoke with a source who said Redskins owner Dan Snyder is all-in on Young:

“I don’t think [Washington owner] Dan [Snyder] would want that. He wants to give Haskins the opportunity and I think Dan is infatuated with [Ohio State defensive end] Chase Young.”

The writeup also goes on to hint Dwayne Haskins was sheerly a Snyder pick. Based on plenty of evidence — besides Haskins being a Mayland native who went to the same high school as Snyder’s son — and the midseason firing of Jay Gruden, it’s hard to shake this idea.

But playing up Tagovailoa before the draft is just smart business on the chance the Redskins can drum up a historical trade return for the second pick.

If it’s clear Cincinnati won’t deal the first pick, it isn’t too much of an exaggeration to think the Redskins could receive a similar return for moving out of No.2 with a team that wants Tagovailoa.

While it’s a little boring to think this could just end with the Redskins standing still and taking Young, his play would be anything but.

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10 NFL teams with new looks for 2020

10 NFL teams with new looks for 2020

 

 

10 NFL teams with new looks for 2020

Touchdown Wire looks at the 10 NFL teams that will have the most change in 2020.

The National Football League is all about change from year to year and 2020 is going to be no different.

Whether it’s a new head coach, different assistants, the additions of rookie or players switching teams, there are always teams that look totally different than the year before. That can be better or worse. But not many teams ever sit completely still.

The 2020 season is going to be full of teams with looks that are vastly different than 2019. Let’s take a look at the at the 10 teams that will have the biggest changes in looks in 2020.

10. Pittsburgh Steelers

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Mike Tomlin did perhaps his finest coaching job in 2019. He somehow kept his team in the playoff race until the end. He did that without injured quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Tomlin shuffled young quarterbacks Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges. With Roethlisberger back, the Steelers should get back to the playoffs in 2020. Just getting Roethlisberger back will change the Steelers’ look back to what it used to be.

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