Has Dan Snyder become the detached owner fans want?
The Washington Redskins owner apparently has surrendered to the Burgundy Revolution’s demands. Vice president Vinny Cerrato was fired; so was coach Jim Zorn.
But that was the easy part. Fans wanted Snyder to become a Sundays-only owner. One who sat in the owner’s box with celebs and returned the Redskins to a football operation instead of a marketing company whose product was sports.
That finally seems to have happened, too. What’s next? A Tea Party on the White House lawn?
After 11 years and more than a billion dollars spent on three mediocre playoff seasons, Snyder finally seems to understand a sports franchise is not a toy. It doesn’t run the same way as other businesses. Just like a chemistry teacher is unfit to run Dow Chemical, a businessman is no more prepared to run a team than any other fan even if he owns it.
Snyder isn’t the first owner to discover his shortcoming. He just spent more money than anyone to learn so.
Predecessor Jack Kent Cooke’s offices were in Middleburg, Va. Most of the business side worked there. Cooke watched practice and certainly talked with GMs Bobby Beathard and Charley Casserly regularly, but the business and sports sides didn’t intertwine.
Snyder, wrongly, didn’t see the difference. The comfy couches in the lobby for players to hang out between meetings were replaced with stiff furniture. The air reeked of awful stogies smoked by Snyder and his cronies despite Virginia’s no smoking laws. Redskins Park soon went from a family operation to a corporation.
Snyder turned training camp into a circus one summer before painfully discovering it isn’t wise to charge fans and thus allow opposing scouts to watch practice. At least the owner learned that lesson quickly. However, it took five coaching changes and a 4-12 season before he finally admitted Cerrato would never succeed.
Nowadays, general manager Bruce Allen and two-time Super Bowl winning coach Mike Shanahan run the team. Snyder is not a daily figure at Redskins Park. He watches press conferences from the rear of the auditorium instead of the stage.
Vice president Karl Swanson’s exit is the latest distancing from the past — the last of Snyder’s original inner circle. There’s nothing nefarious here. Swanson wanted to leave for some time.
But the hiring of Tony Wyllie as Swanson’s replacement is telling. Wyllie is one of the more respected front office officials leaguewide after spending 10 years in Houston.
This all sounds good, but let’s see how Snyder reacts this fall if the team stinks. If he remains the second coming of The Squire, then fans really can cheer a new era.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com and Twitter @Snide_Remarks or e-mail [email protected].
