It’s not like the Raiders and Al Davis ever did anything to the NFL. I’m sure the poorest owner in the league with the ugliest haircut is all buddy buddy with he rest. I’m also sure that just a few years ago Dan Snyder would have never changed the name of the WFT. The Redskins brand alone was worth 200 million.
Even a old boys club has in-groups and competition, backstabbing and small groups grabbing for power. They just don’t want their internal shit to get out.
You aren’t kidding.
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Is that what you call a Super Bowl Cut?
This is true; at least while Al was alive, he (and, by extension, the team) was likely as close as the NFL would come to having a pariah franchise, thanks to his repeated lawsuits against the league, and his decades-long feud with then-commissioner Pete Rozelle.
I am not sure if things have changed much (if at all) since Al’s passing, and Mark taking over the franchise; Mark seems to be less volatile (and less litigious) than his father, but definitely quirky in his own way. BTW, this is Mark’s van (I’m not kidding):
If you take all of the owners. Remove everyone not worth over 3 billion. Remove any trust ownership, or ownership groups. Remove any “new” money, or jerk-off kids who have taken over. Then you maybe add back in a few historic names (Rooney’s ect.). You will get the old boys club within the old boys club. Jerry Jones, Arthur Black, Robert Kraft… These are powerful people who get shit done.
Remember 4 months back when a huge part of the Raiders front office jumped ship. Nobody knows why. Nobody is talking about it. Maybe Davis needed his wrists slapped.
Remember how Gruden was an ESPN employee when this went down. ESPN and the NFL just announced a MNF wildcard game (makes them whole from any bad pub).
Remember when Dan Snyder said he would never change the teams name in 2013. I posted above, the name alone was valued at 200 million. The name change was announced in 2020, the investigation was started in 2020.
You get 2 fall guys. One is a big name (who most people don’t like), and one is retired but was working for the actual team. Everyone powerful enough was made whole. Everyone who wasn’t was penalized. Messages were sent.
(Feel free to poke holes in this. I’m not really up to date on all the owners or the timelines. Just a fun conspiracy)
Shortly after Gruden was let go, the Raiders also cut fourth string quarterback Kyle Sloter, who had made a post mocking Doctor Fauci (although he was also replaced with Marcus Mariota, who had just come back from an injury, so it could be just a coincidence.)
This is a great piece of prose about Mark Davis: Mark Davis Travels 500 Fucking Miles To Look Like That!
I understand that this is likely targeted toward Gruden. Nonetheless, I can’t ever get past the suspicion that it would be exactly Dan Snyder‘s behavior to use something like this to shove a Bruce Allen under a bus as collateral damage.
From what I’ve read (almost certainly speculation), there’s no way Allen will ever work in the NFL again after this whole mess.
The name change was more due to Nike and not selling Redskins merchandise as a result of all the backlashes in 2020. Remember, before Amazon, Nike was the company progressives loved to hate. Now, with embracing Kaepernick and forcing the Washington name change, they’re now loved.
Bullshit. Progressives may like those things but they certainly, as a whole, do not love Nike and still call them out for their labor practices.
Why make stuff up completely out of thin air?
This wasn’t about Nike or merchandise.
The name change was announced within a day of FedEx giving Dan Snyder an ultimatum to change the team name or else. You know, FedEx, that company that < sarcasm> clearly is deeply involved in the culture wars and wades into every single issue < /sarcasm>.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/sports/football/dan-snyder-washington-redskins-name-fedex.html
Nike had jack-all to do with the decision.
However, I won’t continue this possible hijack.
I think that’s really the bigger issue than Gruden’s offensive emails: Gruden clearly felt comfortable behaving and communicating this way with prominent NFL officials. It’s indicative of a cultural problem which probably, to some extent, explains why minorities and women find it challenging to find coaching and/or executive roles in the league.
My conspiracy theory is that: 1) Goodell found out what Gruden had said about him in one of the emails; and, 2), that Mark Davis had probably told certain people that he was having buyer’s remorse over Gruden’s $100 contract. Those certain people probably approached Goodell on behalf of Davis.
I don’t feel sorry for Gruden, but the selective nature the email dump makes the malevolence obvious.
I doubt this part. He had a week to do something and he reportedly personally loves Gruden and has for decades.
What appears to have happened is the NFL gave Mark Davis a week to do something after the initial email.
He didn’t do anything beyond spin control. And that’s when the other emails got released, forcing the issue.
Left to his own devices, I doubt he’d have done anything except let Gruden finish his contract. Gruden was always a terrible GM but a good enough coach to continue putting in 6-10 and 7-9 seasons with the occasional overreach to get a wild card spot.
Likely so. Davis’s love for Gruden reminded me of Jerry Jones’s love for Jason Garrett, which led to retaining Garrett as a coach through a decade of mediocrity, and only two playoff wins (never making it past the divisional round). I don’t think that Jones would have given any other coach who got that sort of result, that sort of loyalty or longevity.
You could be totally right – I was just WAGging. And thinking like a rational human, not Mark Davis. If it were me, I’d have been looking for an exit from that $100 mil contract, considering how he ripped up a team that was already playoff-ready.
Does “being a bigot” require a lot of coaching? I would have thought that natural talents abounded.
I believe there’s a song about that.
