Jason Wright might be Washington Football Team’s most significant hire

Dan Snyder’s role

Wright, with all his positive traits, still does not hold the most authority in the Washington Football Team’s business wing. That distinction again belongs to team owner Dan Snyder, and just as onlookers worried that he’d be an obstruction for Ron Rivera, the same threat exists for Jason Wright.

At some point, Snyder does deserve credit for bringing on Wright and Rivera in the first place. But one cannot use these present-day changes to discount twenty years of dysfunction, mismanagement, and indifference from the team’s top executive.

Snyder’s tenure has been very far from perfect, and when talking about Bruce Allen, it’s imperative to note that Snyder himself, in many cases, not only engaged in complicity with Allen’s actions, but also emboldened Allen and served as his closest confidant for the better part of a decade. Ill-fated names like Scot McCloughan and Brian LaFemina point to a harrowing reality under Allen’s reign: When the authority of Snyder and Allen was threatened, that threat was cast out.

Now, however, Snyder’s braintrust of ignorance has crumbled, and he is perhaps the only one left standing. But even with that safety net gone, there’s still a chance that Snyder will revert to his old ways, even after making positive changes on the surface.

Jason Wright has spoken with Snyder, and in a CBS Sports article by Jonathan Jones, he went into more depth on what he and Snyder talked about, and why he’s optimistic for his future as the Washington Football Team’s president.

“In those conversations [with Snyder] we didn’t just talk about the rosy future. We talked about the mistakes we’ve made. I talked about mine. Dan talked about his. We were really transparent with one another,” Wright said in the article mentioned above. “We asked each other provocative questions about tough topics. And the fact that we got to that level of transparency and openness really gives me a lot of confidence walking into this job.”

Perhaps Snyder has changed. Any human being is capable of it. But Snyder’s history has forfeited him the benefit of doubt. If he has changed, it’s up to him to prove it, and stay on the course he’s set by hiring Rivera and Wright. It looks like a simple task, but for Snyder, it is far more complex than it seems.

If nothing else, Jason Wright is in the ear that once welcomed Bruce Allen. And that change alone is very significant.