Redskins: Inside Dan Snyder’s tragic quest to be a hero

A misplaced superiority complex

The darker sides of Snyder’s purchase of the Redskins were evident fairly soon after the transaction occurred. A particular incident, shared to us by Ken Johannesen on our latest podcast, spotlights Snyder’s terribly misplaced superiority complex.

In 1999, his first season with the Redskins after purchasing the team in May of that year, Snyder’s defensive coordinator was Mike Nolan. Nolan, in hindsight, hasn’t been a fairly consistent defensive mind in the NFL. As a defensive coordinator for seven teams, he never spent more than four years at a franchise, and in 1999, he was entering his third season with Washington.

Nolan coordinated a bad game early in the season, and was met with immediate complaints from Snyder, who didn’t like his “vanilla” defense. Some time after the game, in the next week, a gallon of ice cream appeared on Nolan’s desk, with a note saying: “This is what I like: Not vanilla.”

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Nolan, per Larry Brown Sports, had already deduced that Snyder was an owner who couldn’t be reasoned with over football matters, so he brushed off the first incident and prepared for his next game. Again, his calls left something to be desired for the oft-irrational owner. After another loss, and another spotty game by Nolan, when Nolan came to his office at night later that very day, he found waiting for him a melting trio of ice cream canisters, and another note: “I wasn’t joking. I do not like vanilla.”

It’s one thing to suggest a different defensive philosophy behind closed doors, in good faith. After all, owners care about the success of their team. It’s another to disguise personal preference as the one correct way to do things, and ruthlessly make an example of an employee, showing a dense lack of empathy, a lack of self-awareness, and alarming pretentiousness in the process. It’s another thing for a new, unqualified owner to trespass this far down the organizational hierarchy, to slap his authoritative hand onto the field, as if he knows better because he bought his title.

But Snyder does not know better. He only thinks he does. He has a superiority complex that serves as his opaque cocoon, coaxing him into believing that he is the hero to save the Redskins franchise. Snyder is not unlike Syndrome, the arch-villain from the critically-acclaimed animated movie “The Incredibles”.

A particular scene stands out for this analogy, when Mr. Incredible finds himself in the clutches of the caped conman. While the protagonist sits in shackles, Syndrome monologues, and reveals his plan to the hero. In a rage, Incredible shouts: “So… you killed off real heroes, so you could pretend to be one?”

Snyder’s game that he plays, childish like an animated movie, pegs him as the pretend hero. And in his path, others have stood, and been promptly removed. Norv Turner, Joe Gibbs, Vinny Cerrato, Mike Shanahan, Scot McCloughan, and most recently, Brian Lafemina. Snyder shuffles through potential saviors on a yearly basis, to try and stand on their shoulders in order to pave a path to prominence. And when they either reveal themselves as similarly incompetent, or go against his infinite knowledge, he disposes of them, and paints them as the real problem. In fact, he may genuinely think others are the problem, lacking the foresight, or willingness, to take a simple look into the mirror.

Perhaps he’s accepted this form. And perhaps he’ll continue to kill off real heroes, and maintain a blind pretense that he is the answer. Whatever it takes, to keep the empty charade alive. To keep his dream from devolving into dust.