Jason Wright admits Washington bungled Sean Taylor’s jersey retirement

While the Washington Football Team’s on-field play has improved in recent weeks, the franchise has continued to make a mockery of itself off the field.

From Dan Snyder getting let off the hook following the investigation into Washington’s workplace culture and the universally panned effort to retire Sean Taylor’s No. 21 jersey, the franchise has done very little to reassure fans that it’s on the path back to respectability.

Again, we’re speaking strictly in terms of off-the-field affairs.

We hate to even bring it up, but Taylor’s retirement ceremony was perhaps more frustrating than Snyder’s punishment, or lack thereof, from the NFL. After all, did anybody really expect Snyder to face the music for his shady history?

Probably not.

However, a lot of fans (including us) convinced themselves that not even Washington could manage to screw up Taylor’s ceremony.

Alas, they failed with flying colors and president Jason Wright finally came out and acknowledged the team’s blunder.

Washington president Jason Wright spoke out on Sean Taylor’s jersey retirement ceremony.

"“When you make change that quickly, you lose a little bit of institutional knowledge and you can definitely lose a lot of connection to the history of this club,” Wright said during an appearance on 106.7 The Fan’s Sports Junkies.“That’s something that has happened and we need to course correct…like the way that we royally F’d up the Sean Taylor jersey retirement. I’m so grateful that the family was blessed and so rewarded and so honored, but our fans didn’t get the right opportunity to celebrate that.”"

Credit to Wright for actually being outspoken about Washington’s organizational failures. Yes, the franchise should be doing better, but we all know his boss (Mr. Snyder) would have sent someone else out to take the slings and arrows. The fact Wright is candid about all the negatives is a real sight for sore eyes.

Having said that, this statement was long overdue.

After all, Washington announced Taylor’s ceremony just THREE days before it was scheduled for halftime of Week 6. A celebration of that magnitude should have been announced at least a month beforehand.

Given how highly Taylor is regarded in Landover, though, we’d argue it should’ve been disclosed a year in advance.

Moving past the lack of notice, the timing of the ceremony also didn’t sit right with fans, as it came just days after leaked emails from the aforementioned investigation uncovered hateful messages sent by former Raiders head coach Jon Gruden to then-Washington president Bruce Allen.

Many were led to believe Washington used Taylor’s ceremony as a smokescreen for that development. That’s still open for interpretation.

A lot of other small things went unnoticed, too. There wasn’t a halftime speech or tribute to Taylor, the sideline number tribute was put right where VIPs (family members of players, etc.) stand, which led to its own controversy, and Snyder wore a team sweatshirt to the pre-game meeting with Taylor’s family.

There’s really nothing Wright can do to atone for this mistake. He owned up to it and apologized, like any self-respecting team president would do. All we can do is hope that Wright and the organization actually turn their comments into action, so nothing like this ever happens again.

Unfortunately, there are no redos when it comes to retirement ceremonies, so they’ll have to live with this gross oversight.