Apologies, Eagles. Following a recent ESPN report, the Commanders might need the nation’s assist when the 2 groups kick off in Sunday’s NFC Championship Recreation (3 p.m. ET, FOX).
On Saturday, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. printed a wonderful profile into the mindset of former Commanders proprietor Dan Snyder, who bought the staff to an possession group led by Josh Harris in July 2023, contemplating Washington’s outstanding success. The franchise is one win away from taking part in within the Tremendous Bowl for the primary time since January 1992, seven years earlier than Snyder bought it in Might 1999.
“He f—— hates it,” an affiliate of Snyder’s instructed a colleague, per the report, when sharing how the disgraced former staff proprietor views the Commanders’ playoff run.
Schadenfreude has by no means felt so candy. And will probably be even sweeter if Washington wins on Sunday.
The ESPN report is not all roses for the Washington trustworthy who suffered by means of Snyder’s terrible regime. Wickersham and Van Natta Jr. additionally detailed Snyder’s last-minute antics in an try and thwart the 2023 sale.
One dim-witted concept reportedly was for Snyder “to announce that he had years earlier given up alcohol, and to say that a lot of his alleged misbehavior … occurred whereas he was drunk.”
In the course of the early morning hours on the day of the sale, a defiant Snyder reportedly nonetheless possessed the stadium keys and yelled that anybody going there “could be trespassing” on his territory.
“It is nonetheless mine!” Wickersham and Van Natta Jr. quote Snyder as saying.
Thankfully for the league and Commanders followers, Snyder finally relented, paving the way in which for the staff’s unbelievable turnaround.
However as a lot as everybody related to the NFL would love to clean their fingers clear of Snyder, the ESPN report reveals he is a specter nonetheless hovering over the league.
Snyder has a number of unresolved authorized battles and an ongoing investigation into alleged “misleading enterprise practices” he engaged in whereas working Commanders.
In November 2022, D.C. Lawyer Basic Karl A. Racine filed a lawsuit in opposition to Snyder, the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell “for colluding to deceive District residents.”
Whereas Snyder remains to be a headache for the NFL, the Commanders reside their finest lives with out him.
This season, Washington received 12 video games for the primary time since 1991, when the franchise final reached the NFC title sport. It is no coincidence that the Commanders have reversed their fortune so quickly after Snyder bought the staff.
As horrible of an proprietor as he was, Snyder is simply as unhealthy at breaking apart. As an alternative of being completely happy for the Commanders, he’d relatively they be as depressing as him.