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

Training camp perhaps dulled the impact that the Washington Football Team’s hire of Jason Wright was supposed to have, but after listening to him talk, it’s clear that he is nothing like his predecessor.

In the 2020 offseason, the Washington Football Team fired Jay Gruden, cutting its ties with over a half-decade of mediocrity. The Washington Football Team fired long time president Bruce Allen, and hired respected coach Ron Rivera to take over football operations.

The Washington Football Team transformed its very essence in the winter of 2020, and yet, the mid-training camp hire of Jason Wright as president might be the team’s most important move.

Last week, the Washington Football Team brought on former NFL running back and management consultant Jason Wright to become its new team president, finally filling a role that had been left vacant after the removal of Bruce Allen from his post. And already, the impression he’s left has been strong.

Granted, Wright’s predecessor didn’t leave him with a very high bar to reach, but Wright has already made clear that things will be different this time around, not just with what he’s said, but what he’s done. For an organization that writhed in a gelatinous spawn of dysfunction and toxicity for the past decade — a spawn precipitated by its front office — Wright is a welcome change, and the right man to right the ship.

The hire of Jason Wright

The Washington Football Team left the position of team president vacant for most of the offseason, but when they needed a new president with a vision the most — stuck in the middle of a thorough rebranding process and a fan re-energization project — they brought on Jason Wright.

At the immediate outset of his hire, Wright became not only the first black team president in NFL history, but also became the youngest team president in the NFL at just 38 years old.

Wright has a unique background as a team president; being only the fourth former player to obtain the position, Wright has inside experience on how business dealings up top may impact events on the field, and he was also a captain and an NFLPA representative as a player. But no detail is more relevant, perhaps, than his work at McKinsy and Company, a firm renowned for its work consulting with businesses and improving business cultures, as well as fostering inclusion.

The thing that Washington needed most, in the wake of Bruce Allen’s ouster, was a cultural overhaul. Ron Rivera helped kick off that culture change, but he can only work alongside Dan Snyder for so long as the head coach. Wright’s very job, however, will be to work on the same plane as Snyder and make sure that the Washington Football Team is finally engaging in meaningful change.

How Wright differs from Bruce Allen

When Bruce Allen was hired by Washington, he was advertised as a winner, and Dan Snyder sold fake promise with his addition. With that in mind, any skepticism surrounding the Wright hire is understandable; the fans of the Washington Football Team have been misled before.

But less than a week into Wright’s official tenure as team president, it’s already all too clear how he differs from Allen. The differences could very well number in the hundreds, but a large number of them can be categorized behind one word: Transparency.

Since being hired, Wright has accepted dozens of interviews — quite possibly more interviews than Bruce Allen took in his entire tenure with Washington. And as an interviewee, Wright is perhaps the spectral opposite of Bruce Allen. It’s something I can show you more effectively than describe to you, so watch this clip below.

Watching the clip, you’ll see that Wright –first and foremost — is very articulate, intelligent, and personable. But not only that; he’s also honest — not just honest to the fans and listeners about what his plan is, but also honest with himself about where the Washington Football Team needs to improve.

There’s also transparency and honesty surrounding Wright’s roles, as well as his intentions. Wright has made clear in several interviews that he’ll be specifically overseeing the business side of things for Washington, focusing on marketing, finance, and management duties, while Ron Rivera will handle the football side.

With Bruce Allen, the lines between football and business were blurred, and this led to role confusion, clashes for power, and an overarching air of dysfunction.

Bruce Allen — perhaps evidenced best by his infamous “the culture is damn good” quote — fell into a trap of inter-organizational bias. Closed off from better, more innovative organizational cultures in the NFL, Allen either truly felt that his way would work, or was blissfully ignorant to the fact that it wouldn’t, effectively prioritizing preserving his role over true success.

With Allen, the truth was constantly convoluted under layers of reckless pride, egotistical self-preservation, and pettiness. But with Wright, it seems out in the open, untainted and available in its full capacity.  That alone is already certain, and it feels so much different.

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.

Looking ahead

On the surface, Jason Wright’s hire appears to be another reason for optimism for fans of the Washington Football Team. Wright is young, innovative, but most importantly transparent, and he’ll look to bring a level of honesty to the president position that fans aren’t accustomed to.

Ron Rivera, meanwhile, compounds the positive outlook on the football side of things. For the team’s cultural overhaul currently underway, Rivera was the exact right coach needed. He’s already shown that he’ll be tough on his players and push them to reach their potential, but he’s also quickly fostered a connection with them as well. Rivera has also delegated when necessary, handing the offensive keys to promising coordinator Scott Turner.

If it can all be left alone for a while, and left to grow, the Washington Football Team appears to have a plan in place —  a plan that could soon be conducive to success. But it’s up to Snyder to see it through, and let it happen. That prospect will always be met with skepticism, as Snyder has been unable to do that for twenty years.

But the bad influences have since been expunged. Allen is gone, and Snyder has surrounded himself with reputable minds — minds he seems to be listening to. It takes a level of humility and honesty with oneself to engage in this kind of rebuild. We don’t know if Snyder has changed, but after the ever-important Jason Wright hire, it’s impossible not to pose the question: Has he?