MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Wednesday morning the Washington Commanders issued a press release to announce that Dan and Tanya Snyder had hired Bank of America to “consider potential transactions.”
Maybe if you’re a baseball fan caught up in the drama of this fantastic World Series we have going, you saw “potential transactions” and thought possible trades. But wasn’t the TV show’s trade deadline on Tuesday? And why would Snyder hire Bank of America to make trades and sign free agents? Why not? He’s proven he’s not capable of doing it.
Now, if you are a Washington D.C. sports fan and foremost a Commanders fan (still sounds really funny), you read this press release and found yourself saying, “Be still my tender heart … Nah, we’ve had false hope on this one too many times before.”
Then, just in time for the 6 o’clock SportsCenter, word broke that the U.S. attorney’s office in Virginia opened a criminal investigation into alleged illegal business practices by the team; this coming on top of the franchise also being under further investigation for sexual harassment and workplace misconduct.
Meanwhile, the Snyders continued to play their cat-and-mouse/will-they-or-won’t-they song and dance (more on that in a bit) and refused to elaborate on what “potential transactions” means. Will it be a full sale of the team? They now own 100 percent after buying out the remaining minority partners. Or maybe it means they are just opening a search for new minority partners, and good luck with that.
After Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay figured, what the heck, all of his skeletons are already out and volunteered that NFL owners could possibly force out Snyder, maybe the plow really is moving on this. And why wouldn’t the Snyders be curious about the prospect, as Forbes values the franchise at a nifty $5.6 billion, which would be an NFL record for the sale of a team.
Who needs to play Powerball, right? Of course, if Snyder had not run the franchise into the ground from the beginning, it would likely be worth over $7 billion. An NFL team in the nation’s capital? Come on …
D.C. sports fans, NFL fans, the NFL and its owners are sick of the Snyders, so you know that means everybody wants him gone last week.
We can talk about the unscrupulous existence of this cretin from hell all we want to, and the other owners can play high and righteous all they want to, but the truth is, most of them are no better or no worse than Dan Snyder.
The bottom line on why the owners want him gone is as simple as their own G-R-E-E-D: Dan Snyder, through no fault of his own, inherited that garbage dump just off the Capital Beltway known as FedEx Field, then proved his infallible capacity for taking a bad situation and making it worse.
On its best day, which was likely the day it opened as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, the place was a nightmare, logistically and esthetically. No easy way in, even a more difficult process getting out, and once you do get out, the Capital Beltway in all of its horror awaits.
Snyder has twice cut the seating capacity of the stadium because most of the fans who go there are the fans of the visiting teams. On top of that, the construction was a rush job because old man Cooke had to build his monument to himself before he went off to the great beyond himself, and now the place is falling apart. Ask those Philadelphia Eagles fans who nearly broke their necks because of faulty guardrails about that one.
No, the owners want Snyder out for no other reason than he has not delivered a new stadium that is desperately needed for the once storied franchise in our nation’s capital. And guess what? That will never happen as long as Snyder is the owner because he has burned every bridge with the governments of Maryland, Virginia and Washington.
So there’s no telling what he’s going to do, what he’s up to or what the NFL is up to in light of yesterday’s news that may or may not have been coincidence. The thinking here is the two announcements are no coincidence at all.
The truth is, Dan Snyder likes the attention, even the notorious attention that he has become such a natural in receiving. That’s the Little Man in him – “I’ll show them.” Well, if this were Missouri he’d have been gone long ago, because all he has ever shown is greed, lust for power and his despicable nature, which he has proven to be his own true self.
He has no regard for anybody other than himself, so unless NFL owners bring down the hammer, don’t expect this to be settled any time soon. As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
And once Dan Snyder is gone — and he eventually will be – and new owners are in place, bet your home the Commanders will find their new home in their old home and be back in old D.C.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MikeBurkeMDT