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

DANIEL SNYDER (Majority owner, 1999-present)

In 1999, it looked as if the trustees had found their buyer in a group headed by real estate titan Howard Milstein and his brother Edward. The Milsteins already held a substantial interest in the NHL’s New York Islanders. But the deal, which was announced in January of ’99, had to be approved by the NFL finance committee. And when the finance committee got into the details of the bid, they did not like what they saw. The bid was eventually withdrawn.

The Milstein’s partner, a successful young man who had grown up as a big fan of his hometown team, decided to forge ahead. Daniel M. Snyder found new partners and completed the purchase for $800 million. It dwarfed the previous record for the sale of a franchise.

It became apparent early on that despite his thirst for winning, the new owner lacked something that the previous three had. He was not comfortable in the spotlight. Though he clearly was prepared to invest in the team, he was never going to be the quotable Cooke, the eloquent Williams, or the showman Marshall.

That kind of thing really shouldn’t matter. And if you win, it doesn’t matter. But when you lose, as the team consistently did under Snyder’s stewardship, his particular brand of prickly shyness came across as smug and defensive. As if he was too thin-skinned to ever hear loyal-but-frustrated fans.

Beyond issues of personality, Snyder made a number of poor decisions early on. He seemed to run the team like a fan would, paying huge salaries for big names who were in the mercenary stages of their careers. Those signings – Smith and Sanders and George – almost never worked out.

He hired a professional coach in Marty Schottenheimer, then almost immediately undermined him, as Edward Bennett Williams had done with Otto Graham three decades earlier.

When Jack Kent Cooke saw a struggle brewing between his coach, Jack Pardee, and his GM, Bobby Beathard, Cooke made a quick and decisive decision to support his GM. Pardee was a highly-respected football man, but it’s hard to argue with the outcome. Early on, Snyder had a similar decision to make. He made the disastrous choice to side with his sycophantic player personnel man Vinnie Cerrato over Schottenheimer, setting the franchise back for a decade.

After moving on from that disaster, Snyder bungled the situation surrounding his supremely-talented young quarterback Robert Griffin III by establishing a back channel line of communication between player and owner which essentially chopped the legs off his veteran coach Mike Shanahan. Neither Shanahan nor Griffin was blameless in what eventually played out, but it all stemmed from an owner who couldn’t keep the chain of command in proper perspective.

The team’s fortunes have suffered correspondingly. Though there is some legitimate hope that Snyder has grown as an owner during his disappointing twenty-year run, a lot of the fanbase remains skeptical. You will hear a lot of comments to the effect of “this team will never win until a new owner is in place.”

The past few years have seen an odd confluence of positive signs on the field and turbulence off of it. A good young roster, a trip to the playoffs. A more diverse front office comprised of real football men, and football women. Those things go along with a horribly-botched situation with All-Pro tackle Trent Williams, very troubling allegations of a long-term sex scandal, and some ugly shake-ups in the front office and in the ranks of ownership.

The most obvious upheaval came when Snyder reversed decades of proclamations and changed the team’s name and everything associated with its iconic mascot. That decision, and the fact that the franchise has not yet come up with something beyond the generic Washington Football Team, is a good metaphor for Snyder’s ownership.

Some applauded the move as long overdue. Some decried it a capitulation to political correctness. It becomes clearer with each passing year that nothing Dan Snyder does will win unambiguous favor in the court of public opinion until his team wins on the football field.

His detractors hope that the recent troubles – especially the sex scandal – will eventually force him into selling the team. Do not hold your breath. Though they have the power to do so, NFL owners have never forced a sale under these types of conditions. They do not want to be in this position. The closest they have come was in 2018, when Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson gave in to pressure and sold his team to David Tepper. There had been numerous reports of sexual impropriety in Carolina, along with secret settlements to keep it all under wraps.

If more evidence comes out about Snyder’s involvement with similar activities regarding the Washington Football Team, the thought is that Snyder, like Richardson, can be encouraged – if not outright forced –  to sell. This does not take into account several key differences in the two situations.

Richardson was old and in poor health when he made the decision to sell. It is likely he was not interested in a fight at that point in his life. Snyder is still young, at least by owner standards, and to the best of anyone’s knowledge, still healthy. Given what we know about him, it seems unlikely he would shy away from a fight.

Then there is the issue of emotional attachment. While Richardson was a Carolina boy, he had no particular attachment to the Panthers franchise because it did not exist when he was growing up. As everyone knows, Snyder was a childhood fan of the team he now owns.

Furthermore, Richardson could sell the Panthers content with the knowledge that he built it from the ground up. He was the team’s original owner. He brought professional football to North Carolina. He took his team to the Super Bowl.

Snyder, on the other hand, inherited one the league flagship franchises and, to date, has squandered much of its good name and at least some of its value. Marshall won two championships. Williams got his team to their first Super Bowl. Cooke won three of them.

To date, Daniel Snyder has not won a damn thing. I do not see him going quietly under such conditions.

That said, things are looking somewhat better for the Washington Football Team these days. Snyder’s mark has been much less positive than his three predecessors, but hope is always alive with the start of a new season.

And speaking of mark, I still think that Daniel Marc Snyder could be a winning owner, though I am less confident in Dan Snyder.