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

Inside the quest

So where is our hero now?

He sits behind walls, presiding over operations at Redskins Park. He maintains unreasonable concessions prices, and he does nothing to make the fan experience less miserable. Opposing fans now flood the stadium as Redskins fans lose their motivation to care. But to Snyder, the numbers still check out. It’s all the same.

Perhaps Snyder does care, in a flawed sense. No one who has not met him, and spent time with him, can make a damning judgement of his character. Care must be taken that Snyder, in all his failings and all his indifference, is not dehumanized. Heroes are complex characters, after all. Villains are, too. Perhaps Snyder has actively sought out a solution all these years, as he watches his base, his franchise’s source of tradition and pageantry, trickle away faster and faster.

But if Dan Snyder isn’t the hero, the solution doesn’t work. And it’s someone else’s fault.

It is the function of Dan Snyder’s hollow cocoon; to tune out all the noise while he only makes more. To cast away the accused evildoer when everyone knows who the real villain is. To protect him, until maybe one day, he stumbles upon success by the luck of a lottery ticket.

In Snyder’s cocoon, he is a leader. On the outside, he holds no such qualities. In Snyder’s cocoon, he engineers success. On the outside, he repels it. In Snyder’s cocoon, he is a hero in waiting. On the outside, he is the villain who has since revealed himself inadvertently, leaving a steady trail of evidence.

What happens, in a story, when the villain holds all the power? When bleakness is bleakest, and when a hero eludes? All stories are different. For now, there’s only one thing the reader can do.

Turn the page. And keep reading with one eye shut.