The Redskins fired their head coach yesterday. The owner, Dan Snyder, did the deed in a particularly embarrassing way, dragging in Jay Gruden at 5 a.m. to shit can him. The media response was predictable – a chorus of laments that Snyder was banging another nail in the coffin of a once proud franchise, another milestone in a 20-year run of ownership typified by incompetence, imperiousness, and incoherence.
While true to a point, the historical record suggests that Snyder’s reign is less the exception than the rule when it comes to Washington’s football team. In one of the more egregious examples of recency bias, there is a widespread belief that the team’s decade of excellence that began with a win in Super Bowl XVII and ended with one of the most dominating victories in modern history in Super Bowl XXVI, was reflective of the team’s history instead of what it was, a curious anomaly in an otherwise mediocre eighty year existence.
For pundits (and more importantly, the few Skins fans willing to show their faces), a brief history lesson is in order. The Redskins moved to D.C. from Boston in 1937. The team came out of the gate hot, playing for the NFL championship five times over the next eight years (winning twice). After that, the Skins were a regular cellar dweller for the next 25 years, rarely finishing above .500 and more often, lingering in the bottom of the standings. The Over the Hill Gang of 1972 offered a brief moment in the sun with an improbable run to Super Bowl VII (which the team lost to the undefeated Miami Dolphins) before the team settled in for the remainder of the decade as a competitive, but not exceptional squad.
Gibbs’s four Super Bowl appearances (with three victories) are what Washingtonians remember, but those occurred largely because of the confluence to two things – good drafts and little player movement. In the era before free agency, a talented scouting department could put together a competitive team for years because it was nearly impossible for players to leave. The Skins’ 1992 Super Bowl victory occurred as free agency came to the NFL and the team was not prepared. Just two years after dismantling the Bills to win that third title, the team was 3-13 and has been mediocre (at best) ever since, winning just two playoff games in the last quarter century.
This is not to excuse Snyder’s mismanagement, his itchy trigger finger with coaches, or his heavy handed tactics with the media or the public at large. He is, by all accounts, a terrible owner who has chased off a large chunk of the area’s rabid (if unrealistic) fan base. But the reality is that there is precious little that can be done to force any changes. The hundreds of millions in guaranteed revenue owners receive from the league’s TV contract is far more lucrative than the ticket gate, concessions, or parking fees on game day. The various “official sponsors,” from pizza to credit cards, put yet more millions into their pockets. Short of a scandal of the sort that forced the sale of the Carolina Panthers or the Los Angeles Clippers, Washingtonians are stuck with Snyder for the foreseeable future (he is only 54 and has shown no sign of wanting to sell the team).
While it is possible that public shaming, stands filled with opposing teams’ jerseys, or takedowns by sports show talking heads might move the needle, Snyder has withstood two decades of negative publicity, cocooning himself every further from public scrutiny while watching the team’s value grow to the billions of dollars. And that might be the only thing that gets him to cash out – a fear that we are approaching the top of the market for sports franchises and the temptation to take the pay day instead of another 20 years of ridicule.
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