LaVar Arrington Said Dan Snyder Doesn't Let People Look Him In The Eyes And Everyone Has To Call Him "Mr. Snyder" No Matter What
Wait…but I thought the culture was “Actually damn good”? Somehow, I’m beginning to think the culture around the Redskins actually *isn’t* good though.
But it goes even further back. Remember the story about the apples?
WashPo - While the Redskins have never been shy to pay millions to football players, former employees who’ve also worked elsewhere in the NFL say salaries for the rest of the operation lag behind many teams. Ex-staffers reported cutbacks during the recent recession — multiple employees reported receiving bags of apples one year in lieu of holiday bonuses
That article is fantastic in how it talks about how bad the culture is in Ashburn. And this is from 2014. Nothing has changed:
Several former employees said job security was a constant fear. “I never worked in such a nervous building before,” one former employee said. “You never saw anyone who came in and was like, ‘Wow, great to be here today.’ It was grim faces all the time. It was a dozen Bob Cratchits.”
Employees describe Snyder as “moody,” “mercurial,” and “unpredictable,” and former coaches say Snyder’s mood is particularly volatile when the team struggles. They described getting berated in the facility’s workout area and approached in the locker room in the minutes following games.
“He was just openly hostile,” one said. “He had to blame somebody, and if a player didn’t play well, that position coach or coordinator might hear about it.”
This was 2014. And that article includes quotes going back to 2003, 16 years ago, about how bad the culture is and Snyder saying how he has learned and changed:
“I’ve learned,” Daniel Snyder told The Washington Post in 2003, four years after becoming the National Football League’s youngest owner.
The sentiment as sobering as the annual disappointments.
“I think I’ve got incredible patience and understand things now that I didn’t have when I first came into the league,” the Washington Redskins owner told a television reporter in 2004. “I’ve learned a whole bunch.”
The results as reliable as the revolving door in front of the head coach’s office.
It’s nuts. Just nuts. Nothing has changed. It’s only gotten worse, because now there is no chance of change. There’s no hope. There’s no turning this thing around. Nobody has any accountability, they just blame the head coach and then find another one. Snyder just surrounds himself with yes-men and they find the next sacrificial lamb. All we can hope is he sells the team or drives his car off a cliff. We unfortunately can’t make a shirt with the latter though.
