NEW YORK — If the day comes when Dan Snyder—finally, once and for all, and by whatever method it happens—finds himself without an NFL franchise, Oct. 18 will be remembered as a milestone on the path there.
And Tuesday, the gloves came off.
While no other owner went where Colts owner Jim Irsay so willfully did, it was clear inside the posh lower Manhattan hotel where the NFL fall meeting was held which way the wind was blowing on the future of the Commanders. And that future increasingly seems like it won’t include the guy who bought the team 23 years ago.
Snyder’s not walking a metaphorical ownership Green Mile yet. But that’s clearly in sight.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was forthright early Tuesday night when he said that outside of his own guidance to owners to allow for Mary Jo White to complete her investigation before commenting on Snyder, there wasn’t much discussion on Snyder behind closed doors. What he failed to mention was what was happening between sessions, and over text messages, and in the breakout rooms and hallways of the meeting space.
There, among themselves, owners were discussing what to do with Snyder and his Commanders. It started as soon as the owners filtered into the hotel. It escalated after Irsay said there are “potentially” 24 votes to remove Snyder as co-owner of the Commanders.
The temperature, very clearly, has been turned up. And now it’s come to the point where a standoff seems to be looming—with Snyder more or less daring the owners to vote him out, and on multiple occasions.
The first came last week when a Commanders spokesperson, in a written statement, called ESPN’s exposé on Snyder “part of a well-funded, two-year campaign to coerce the sale of the team, which will continue to be unsuccessful.” The second came Tuesday, after Irsay spoke out, when the same spokesperson in another statement, said, “We are confident that, when he has an opportunity to see the actual evidence in this case, Mr. Irsay will conclude that there is no reason for the Snyders to consider selling the franchise. And they won’t.”
If Snyder comes off like a cornered animal, well, there’s a reason for that. He has to know the score here. That another owner was willing to go on the offensive—and suggest setting the precedent of voting a peer out of the club and forcing the sale of a multibillion-dollar commodity—is mighty significant.
