Washington Football Team: A history of the franchise’s owners

EDWARD BENNETT WILLIAMS (Minority owner/President, 1965-1979)

For younger fans of the Washington Football Team, Williams may be the least-known of the men who called the shots. So it is worth pointing out that in the world outside of football, Edward Bennett Williams had a larger impact on the way American society functions today than the other three owners combined.

Indeed, though Williams was a major player in the sports world (he maintained ownership of the Baltimore Orioles after selling off his football team stake), he had a day job as an attorney. A defense attorney. A defense attorney who represented the likes of Jimmy Hoffa and Joseph McCarthy. An attorney, who alongside colleagues like Louis Brandeis, Clarence Darrow, and Thurgood Marshall, was arguably among the most important legal minds of the 20th century.

You can learn more about Williams’ fascinating life elsewhere (Evan Thomas’ The Man to See is a very good starting point) but suffice to say that many of the rights that the common man enjoys today when coming into conflict with the government exist due to the efforts of Edward Bennett Williams. For instance, the police cannot tap your phones without cause in large part because of a defense Williams once employed in a case.

But that has nothing to do with his ownership of the Washington Football Team. Williams bought a small piece – eventually 5% — of the club back in the late 1950s. When Marshall began exhibiting mental decline, Williams and two other minority owners went to court to wrest day-to-day control from him. One of the other owners died, and by 1965, Edward Bennett Williams was running the team.

Williams could be just as mercurial and star-struck as his predecessor. One of his first actions as owner was to fire coach Bill McPeak and hire legendary quarterback Otto Graham. Then, in the manner of the current team owner, he immediately began to undermine his new hire by conducting his own private meetings with players and staff. He engineered awful personnel moves – acquiring Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban and perennial problem child Joe Don Looney. Both proved disastrous.

But he did a few other things that worked out pretty well. For one thing, Williams began changing the culture that had been lukewarm at best to players of color (There is an entirely plausible story that Williams was in line to buy a much larger share of the team in the late ‘50s, but his continual suggestions that the Washington Football Team integrate its roster led to a cooling of his relationship with George Preston Marshall).

He also pulled off a coup by convincing Vince Lombardi to leave Green Bay and come to Washington in 1969. After Lombardi’s untimely death, Williams then brought in George Allen, the man who had fleeced him in the Gary Beban deal, from Los Angeles.

Williams and his coach had a tumultuous relationship (Early on, the owner famously proclaimed “we agreed we had an unlimited budget. He has already exceeded it”). But in less than a decade, Washington went from laughingstock to conference champion and their first Super Bowl. Shortly before ceding complete control, Williams was instrumental in hiring a new general manager in the late 1970s. That GM, Bobby Beathard, would help the franchise ascend to the top of the mountain under the next regime.

Williams also engineered a structural maneuver that would have lasting impact on the franchise. After George Preston Marshall’s death in 1969, Williams arranged for Marshall’s controlling interest in the team to be sold back to the franchise. The franchise then liquidated those shares. The effect of these moves was to elevate that mostly silent partner Canadian partner to the status of majority owner. However, since he still owned teams in other professional leagues out west, he remained behind the scenes, allowing Williams to control his shares.

Williams helped the Washington Football Team emerge from decades-long doldrums. He made the owners box at RFK Stadium the place to be. Stars from politics and journalism mingled with Hollywood celebrities. The team saw quick results in the early ‘70s. Then after a difficult split with George Allen toward the end of the decade, Williams helped rebuild so that even greater success would be possible. It just needed the right man at the helm.