A New Start! (the Reboot) The Front Office, Ownership, & Coaching Staff Thread

[Skinsinparadise]

The idea that Dan is a douche has been well established.   But the constant stream of crap in the media at this level of intensity, with sexual harassment in various forms isn't a been there done that drill for the full 20 plus years of Dan's tenure.  That specific angle has blown up in recent years.   This level of intensity isn't akin to hey we saw the same degree of articles about Dan and the culture of the FO in name that period -- 2013-2016.

 

Does this all blow Dan up?  Who knows.  Probably not.  But I think there is more of a fighting chance now than years back.  Years back, while I recall some wishful thinking here that Dan would be voted out by owners, it wasn't a national story about potentially voting him out, with anonymous shots taken at Dan from other NFL owners on the topic.  And some national columinsts calling for his ouster -- at a minimum Dan being a douche has gone much more national than before and the idea that the dude has basically cut an NFL's fan base in half is now documented in a way that wasn't an issue in 2016 or whenever.  

 

The WP albiet some bemoan that paper on the board is probably our best shot at it.  I do think there is a limit to how much the league can take with garbage about Dan.  They've probably not hit that limit yet but if there is another story or two or three -- I do think its possible to hit a breaking point.  Will see. 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Skinsinparadise

[BringMetheHeadofBruceAllen]

7 hours ago, SoCalSkins said:

They are saying the seat configuration on the plane would have made it impossible to have it not witnessed by others on the plane and the engines were too quiet. However, they also state in the document produced by Dan’s lawyer that the employee was flirting with other men on the trip and wore revealing clothing. Basically the old school defense of she was asking for it the way she dressed and behaved. This is not going to go over well at all. 

 

Funny they mentioned this, considering that Snyder and his posse FORCED his employees to wear skimpy clothing and flirt with his business partners. This was well documented in Cheerleadergate. She was just doing what the terms of employment said she must do to keep her job.

[DJHJR86]

Please dear God let this be the thing that leads to Snyder's downfall.  Please

[Skinsinparadise]

The Goodell testimony will be live on 980

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

Daniel Snyder conducted ‘shadow investigation’ of accusers, panel finds

By Mark Maske

, 

Liz Clarke

 and 

Nicki Jhabvala

 

June 22, 2022 at 8:01 a.m. EDT

 

Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder and members of his legal team conducted a “shadow investigation” and compiled a “dossier” targeting former team employees, their attorneys and journalists in an attempt to discredit his accusers and shift blame following allegations of widespread misconduct in the team’s workplace, according to the findings of the investigation conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

 

Moreover, Snyder hired private investigators and lawyers to unearth inappropriate emails and evidence aimed at convincing the NFL and Beth Wilkinson, who was conducting a league-sponsored investigation into sexual harassment in the organization, that Snyder’s longtime team president Bruce Allen was primarily responsible for any workplace issues.

The preliminary findings were detailed in a 29-page memo from Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, to fellow committee members ahead of Wednesday’s Capitol Hill hearing on the Commanders’ workplace at which NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is expected to testify under oath. Snyder has declined to take part, objecting to the date and the terms.

“This memorandum describes evidence uncovered by the Committee demonstrating that although publicly, the NFL and Commanders touted the hiring of a respected D.C. attorney [Wilkinson] to conduct an internal investigation of the Commanders toxic workplace, privately, Commanders owner Daniel Snyder launched a shadow investigation in an apparent effort to discredit his accusers in the eyes of the NFL and offer up an alternative target for the investigation,” Maloney wrote in her memo. “Bound together by an agreement to pursue a common interest and a joint legal strategy, the NFL and Commanders ultimately buried Ms. Wilkinson’s findings.”

Team representatives and an attorney for Snyder did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning. An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the committee’s findings Wednesday.

 

The hearing comes one day after The Washington Post reported that a team employee accused Snyder of sexually harassing and assaulting her in April 2009, three months before the team agreed to pay the woman $1.6 million as part of a confidential settlement, according to legal correspondence obtained by The Post. Snyder has called the woman’s claims “meritless” and said the team agreed to a settlement only at the guidance of an insurance company.

“Lawyers for Mr. Snyder used their shadow investigation to create a 100-slide dossier with emails, text messages, telephone records, and social media posts from journalists, victims, and witnesses who had made credible public accusations of harassment against the Commanders,” Maloney wrote in the 29-page memo.

The dossier compiled by Snyder’s representatives, according to the committee’s investigation, included Post reporters who’d detailed sexual harassment allegations within the team’s workplace and attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former team employees.

 

“Mr. Snyder’s legal team made multiple presentations to the NFL during Ms. Wilkinson’s investigation, including one that involved a 100-page PowerPoint slide detailing the private communications and social media activity of Washington Post journalists and former employees,” Maloney’s memo said.

That 100-slide dossier was produced from “information obtained through abusive litigation tactics and private investigators who targeted victims and witnesses of the Commanders’ toxic work environment,” the committee found. Snyder’s goal, Maloney wrote, “appears to have been to craft an exculpatory narrative to present to the NFL showing that he was not responsible for the Commanders’ toxic work environment but instead was the victim of a coordinated smear campaign.”

The NFL fined the team $10 million last July, based on the findings of Wilkinson’s investigation. The league also announced then that Snyder would surrender control over the franchise’s daily operations to his wife Tanya, the team’s co-CEO, for an unspecified period. She has represented the team at league meetings since then.

 

The committee’s investigation found that Snyder and his attorneys sent private investigators to the homes of former team cheerleaders seeking derogatory information about Allen and combed through more than 400,000 emails on Allen’s inactive team account in an effort to convince the NFL that Allen was “responsible for the team’s toxic work culture.”

 

Snyder had fired Allen after a decade as team president in December 2019. Allen was not immediately available for comment.

Attorneys representing Snyder provided Wilkinson’s firm and the NFL with the Allen emails, the committee found. An attorney for Snyder “identified the specific inappropriate Bruce Allen emails in attempting to demonstrate that Bruce Allen had created a toxic environment at the Washington Commanders,” Maloney’s memo says.

 

Several of those emails subsequently appeared in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, including some in which then-Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden used racist, homophobic and misogynistic language over seven years of correspondence with Allen while Gruden worked for ESPN. Gruden resigned from the Raiders after the emails were revealed.

Tanya Snyder told fellow NFL franchise owners at a league meeting in New York in October that neither she nor her husband was responsible for the leaked emails, multiple people present at that meeting said at the time.

Gruden sued the NFL in November, accusing the league and Goodell of using leaked emails to “publicly sabotage Gruden’s career” and pressure him into resigning. The NFL has said that it did not leak Gruden’s emails.

 

The league now is conducting a second investigation of Snyder that is being overseen by attorney Mary Jo White. Goodell has pledged to release those findings, after he refused to release Wilkinson’s findings and saying that Wilkinson delivered only an oral report to the league.

Maloney’s summary of the congressional probe noted that the NFL’s initial contract with Wilkinson called for her to deliver a written report and make recommendations but that the league later “changed its plan.” Maloney’s memo accuses the team and the NFL of obstructing the investigations of both Wilkinson and the congressional panel.

The memo also cites instances in which Snyder took no action against coaches and senior staff yet punished female employees for engaging in consensual relationships with male staff. David Pauken, the team’s former chief operating officer, told the committee that when Snyder learned that a coach had groped a public relations employee, Snyder refused to take action against the coach and instead directed that the PR staffer “stay away from the coach.”

 

Pauken also testified that Snyder fired female employees who engaged in consensual relationships with male members of the team or its staff. He cited two cheerleaders’ dismissal for relationships with former tight end Chris Cooley.

“The female employees were fired, the male employee was — there were no repercussions other than he was restricted from additional sex with the cheerleaders,” Maloney’s summary states.

Another former COO for the team, Brian Lafemina, testified that when Snyder was informed of sexual harassment complaints made against former broadcaster Larry Michael, he dismissed the allegations by saying that Michael was a “sweetheart” who “wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Michael later resigned.

 

Former team executive Jason Friedman told the committee that the team’s culture “glorified drinking and womanizing.”

The committee previously detailed Friedman’s allegations of financial improprieties against the team in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The team denied those accusations.

At a congressional roundtable in February, Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team, told committee members that Snyder harassed her at a team dinner, putting his hand on her thigh and pressing her toward his limo. Snyder called the accusations made directly against him “outright lies.”

Edited June 22, 2022 by Skinsinparadise

[Darrell Green Fan]

What time will Goodell be talking to Congress?

 

Can someone who is a lawyer, not the son of a lawyer, explain to me how someone can accept a big settlement with a signed agreement not to discuss the event and then be able to discuss the event years later without violating the agreement and therefore subject to a law suit?  

[Skinsinparadise]

43 minutes ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

What time will Goodell be talking to Congress?

 

Can someone who is a lawyer, not the son of a lawyer, explain to me how someone can accept a big settlement with a signed agreement not to discuss the event and then be able to discuss the event years later without violating the agreement and therefore subject to a law suit?  

11 am.  On 980 and 106.7

Edited June 22, 2022 by Skinsinparadise

[CommanderInTheRye]

8 hours ago, SoCalSkins said:

11 AM Eastern:

https://youtu.be/sXuNUbMrhU8

 

 

 

 

Bumped the link to today's hearing for those, like myself, who have no life whatsoever and have made the highlight of their day watching this with a big pitcher of prune juice and Jack Daniels, a box of Royal Farms fried chicken and tater logs, and a bottle of Mule Sauce (If you are a serious hot sauce fan get your butt to amazon and try it!) while slowly sticking voodoo needles into their Snyder dolls.

 

I done started on the Jack D early..hick.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by CommanderInTheRye

[Conn]

 

[Bifflog]

24 minutes ago, CommanderInTheRye said:

 

 

Bumped the link to today's hearing for those, like myself, who have no life whatsoever and have made the highlight of their day watching this with a big pitcher of prune juice and Jack Daniels, a box of Royal Farms fried chicken and tater logs, and a bottle of Mule Sauce (If you are a serious hot sauce fan get your butt to amazon and try it!) while slowly sticking voodoo needles into their Snyder dolls.

 

I done started on the Jack D early..hick.

 

 

 

Never heard of "tater logs" until today.  Always something new to learn...

[CommanderInTheRye]

9 minutes ago, Bifflog said:

 

Never heard of "tater logs" until today.  Always something new to learn...

 

 

Get you some son mmmm yummy...

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

Listened to Hobson on two different radio stations this morning.  Their angles are:

 

A.  As for the situation with Dan on the plane.  They did an "internal" investigation, and the outside law firm they used was tied to the team's lawyers.  In short, his point was the ones running the investigation were beholden to Dan in some fashion or form 

 

B.  they got the impression that the investigation was focused on the character of the accuser versus what went down.

 

C.  This is the key point Sheehan zoned in on which is they supposedly needed to inform the NFL who is supposed to do their own investigation in cases like this based on NFL policy.  So either the NFL didn't know (more likely) or shrugged it off even though they were supposed to investigate.   I gather this might be brought up today.

 

D.  Talked about Wilkerson being threatened to be sued for talking to Goodell about the details of that case

 

D.  More evidence points to Dan's camp being the ones possibly leaking the Gruden stories in the context of discrediting Bruce.  My editorial on that: supposedly the other owners are irate at the fallout from those leaks so that should heighten their anger.

 

E.  Mary Jo White is investigating some of the new allegations involving Dan -- the NFL still can levy round 2 of punishments.  Just my own editorial on that point, Goodell isn't stupid.  He knows he's been killed PR wise for the first round of punishment which was light, i'd bet round 2 would be much more intense.  I am not that optimistic that they remove Dan but I can see a suspension and if its a serious suspension it could have some teeth to it.  From what I recall Steinbrenner for example wasn't secretly running the Yankees during his suspension. 

 

F.  If I understood Hobson right, they have another story they are looking into.  I sort of mentally checked out on that part of the interview because I thought it was wrapped up so maybe i heard it wrong so I'd have to relisten to that. 

 

More of my own editorial.  Sadly, I do think Jerry Jones issues which are in the same theme, different angles from Dan, might actually help Dan with the fellow owners.  I think Jerry in particular probably doesn't love this rabbit hole they are going to with Dan. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Skinsinparadise

[Mrshadow008]

 

[Bifflog]

23 minutes ago, CommanderInTheRye said:

 

 

Get you some son mmmm yummy...

 

Around these parts, we'd call em wedges...

 

A little Google-fu, and I came across whatever this is 👀:

 

 

4 minutes ago, Mrshadow008 said:

 

 

Well, if things don't work out the way we hope it wasn't for a lack of trying.  Full court press to turn the heat up...

Edited June 22, 2022 by Bifflog

[Darrell Green Fan]

1 hour ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

What time will Goodell be talking to Congress?

 

Can someone who is a lawyer, not the son of a lawyer, explain to me how someone can accept a big settlement with a signed agreement not to discuss the event and then be able to discuss the event years later without violating the agreement and therefore subject to a law suit?  

 

People are laughing at this post but I was dead serious. If you take a settlement and sign an agreement that you will keep you mouth shut how can she tell her story later without ramifications?  

[Skinsinparadise]

I'd love to see Goodell grilled about this, we all know its BS, and its been publicly disproved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrshadow008]

 

[justice98]

He's extra careful to not suggest any sort of suspension was levied.  I hope he gets pressed on why Snyder had the option of choosing to step back and wasnt actually punished.

[NewCliche21]

18 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

listening to a PFF guy on the radio talk about the East. 

 

Overall, I can't recall a team crowned like the Eagles are by the national media based on the off season alone.  Feels like they think its comical to even think we can compete with them.  Division to them is just about over with the Eagles having it locked but Dallas has a fighting chance to dethrone them.

 

Some hyperbole to make a point on my end but it feels almost like the Eagles are coming off a SB and already showed they are the best team in the NFL so anyone thinking otherwise is off.  Best off season on paper of all time for the Eagles?  🙄  The irony is the last time I recall the Eagles crowned based on a perceived killer off season was their "dream team" that blew up on them.  

 

Echoes of the Eagles Dream Team from 2010(?). Like they're stacked for the future, but they don't have George Allen, and the future is not now.

[RandyHolt]

Roger it's 4th and 1 70 Chip and you are getting the ball.

 

Don't take a knee. Your fellow owners will not like that.

[NewCliche21]

26 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

I'd love to see Goodell grilled about this, we all know its BS, and its been publicly disproved

 

<Bunch of BS from Goodell>

 

I don't think that, as many reporters/observers predicted, Goodell and his attorneys are understanding that being wishy-washy-sneaky in a press release is not the same as with Congress. These are among the 435 most manipulative (for good or bad) people in the country. They didn't get where they are without being able to set up and snipe like a ****ing Black Ops assassin.

It's like a really high-touted D1 player who gets by on his athleticism rather than learning the game, then gets blown the **** up Week 1.

 

I hope he gets humiliated and throws Dan under the bus so hard that Jerome Bettis is like, "Bruh don't bring me into this."

[bearrock]

37 minutes ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

 

People are laughing at this post but I was dead serious. If you take a settlement and sign an agreement that you will keep you mouth shut how can she tell her story later without ramifications?  

 

There are myriads of exceptions to NDAs.  Compelled testimony and whistleblower protection being some of them.  

[Conn]

New (detailed) accusations coming out, the pressure staying on, people being disgusted by Roger’s manipulative testimony and Snyder’s conspicuous absence—that’s what we need. Public and media pressure is really the only thing that will ever make the other owners blink and vote him out. It needs to crescendo at just the “right” time, like the name issue. It’s our only hope. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Conn

[NewCliche21]

2 hours ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

Can someone who is a lawyer, not the son of a lawyer, explain to me how someone can accept a big settlement with a signed agreement not to discuss the event and then be able to discuss the event years later without violating the agreement and therefore subject to a law suit?  

 

The way it was explained to me was actually a football analogy.

It's not a penalty if the ref doesn't throw the flag.

Who would prosecute/litigate this in this environment?  What ref wants to determine the outcome of a playoff game?  The only flaw in the analogy is that there's no morality based on societal context during a game.

And as @bearrock said, NDA's can't cover up conspiracies/legal compulsion/whistleblowing.

Edited June 22, 2022 by NewCliche21