5 things Dan Snyder got critically wrong as Commanders owner

Commanders became a coaching graveyard

As an actual football matter – not public relations, franchise value, or legal jeopardy – but in terms of actual on-field football success, here is the most damning number in Dan Snyder’s ownership era with the Washington Commanders.

At various points, he hired four veteran coaches. Marty Schottenheimer, Joe Gibbs, Mike Shanahan, and Ron Rivera.

Those four men, when working for owners other than Snyder, won more than 500 NFL games. They had a regular season winning percentage of over 60 percent. They routinely took their teams to the playoffs. They won multiple Super Bowls.

Under Snyder’s ownership, none left the team with a winning record. That winning percentage of over 60 fell to 43%. They won no championships. Combined, they won a single playoff game. Prior to working with the Commanders, those four coaches had won 32 playoff games.

Sure, Schottenheimer and Shanahan may have been too stubborn. Gibbs and Rivera may have been too old-fashioned. But those guys did not forget how to coach. The common denominator was the owner. He simply was incapable of creating a workplace that spawned success.

So it became increasingly difficult to find coaches willing to join Washington. That reached its laughable zenith with the desperation hiring of Jim Zorn after Gibbs left. But what’s even worse is how Snyder’s poisonous leadership has allowed so many great young coaches to flee.

At various points in the past decade, the Commanders have employed Sean McVay, Kevin O’Connell, and Matt LaFleur. All have gone on to become successful NFL head coaches for other teams.

Perhaps it was inevitable that those three would have to leave to get their shot at the top spot. But Kyle Shanahan was a different story. He was supposed to become the Washington head coach after his father called it quits.

It was all set up. But Snyder dynamited that situation.

The elder Shanahan wasn’t blameless, but it all began with the owner. He simply couldn’t hold onto to a good thing when he had it.

And so the Commanders have won two playoff games in Snyder’s 24 years as owner, the last one coming in 2005. Meanwhile, out in San Francisco, operating largely with mediocre quarterback talent, the younger Shanahan has won six playoff games – in the last four seasons.

He was here. And he fled.