NFL to take over Washington Football Team’s culture investigation

The NFL will reportedly be handling the investigation into the Washington Football Team’s organizational malpractice from this point on.

In July, it was revealed that more than a dozen women had been part of the development of a Washington Post article, which detailed a culture of sexual harassment inside the Washington Football Team. More than a month later, a second article was released, expanding on the findings of the first.

In response the first article, Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder attempted to distance himself from the practices described in the piece, and sponsored an investigation into the team’s protocols. He hired acclaimed lawyer Beth Wilkinson to lead the investigation.

After the second article’s release, however, a team-sponsored investigation no longer seemed like enough. A group of lawyers formally requested that the NFL take on the investigation, and yesterday, it was announced by NFL insider Ian Rapoport that the Washington Football Team’s investigation into cultural malpractice would now be led by the NFL.

According to Rapoport, Wilkinson will be retained as the top lawyer in the investigation by the NFL, but Wilkinson will no longer be financed by, or report to, owner Dan Snyder. She’ll now report to the NFL any findings she has, and the NFL will make a judgement based on those findings.

By taking on the investigation, the NFL has successfully mitigated any conflicts of interest that might have existed when Snyder initially opted to execute an internal investigation. The NFL and their team will now act as a third party of sorts, and the hope is that the truth will come from this independence.

As for what this means for Snyder, it remains unclear. Snyder has not been specifically implicated to the extent that he might be forced to sell, but such evidence could come into the NFL’s possession if the investigation makes it so.

Snyder has been pressured to sell the team by his minority owners, but he hasn’t had the NFL join them in applying that pressure. This investigation could change that, if the findings warrant a change at the top of the Washington Football Team’s front office hierarchy.