Mod Notice: Temp Ban if Post on Changing the Name. Per New York Times: Dan Syder Agrees to Sell Washingon Commaders for $6B

[srtman04]

1 hour ago, CommanderInTheRye said:

 

4. For the record, Snyder has been the worst owner in the NFL for the last quarter-century of NFL history. The scandals are one thing, and they matter. But it’s how the scandals were handled and the besmirching of the team legacy and the endless badness that have turned off a top-five fanbase in NFL history, so that now a Washington fan simply will not care about pro football in the nation’s capital again until Snyder goes away. Here is everything you need to know about the reign of Snyder in Washington versus the tenure of the previous owner, Jack Kent Cooke:

 

 

 

 

Dan Snyder back in 1999:  "The #1 Priority is Winning, and that's what we are gonna do!"   -  2022:  LOLOLOLOLOLOL  🤣

 

[88Comrade2000]

Davis is running a scam. This so called bid was there for 3 weeks before Harris put in his final bid.  If it was a legit bid, Dan would of accepted it.

 

It will be Harris.

[hail2skins]

Has Keim's ESPN article been posted yet? Good summary on what Harris' to-do list encompasses and a good illustration on how much of a train wreck this organization has been on and off the field:

 

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/36179498/top-priorities-new-owners-dan-snyder-sells-washington-commanders

[CommanderInTheRye]

2 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

IMO, there's an elephant in the room, in regards to Davis:  The NFL, which would love nothing more than to have an African American majority owner in the league, is scrutinizing Davis' offer (if there really is one) with a fine tooth comb.  And a FINE tooth comb.  Because with all of Davis' reported shady issues, the NFL cannot afford to get this one wrong...if Davis actually does have that offer (I don't believe for one second that he does, but IF), they're going to double, triple, quadruple check EVERYTHING.  If Snyder kicks the Harris/Rales to the offer to the curb because of what Davis reportedly has, it's going to look terrible for the NFL if it falls through...and not just because a deal fell through and the NFL vetting process would look weak, but because a deal headed up by an African American fell through.  The NFL is going to catch strays because to some it'll look like the "good old boys" don't want an African American owner.  

 

And if Davis does get kicked to the curb outright because of his shady dealings or the League feels that his offer isn't strong enough and not real, the NFL is going to, again, look like the "good old boys" are keeping an African American owner from purchasing a team.  

 

From that perspective, the NFL might feel that they're between a rock and a hard place here, but to me everything is clear; Harris is legit, Steve A the Canadian seems like he's hemming and hawing and Davis isn't real.  But it seems odd that this deal isn't signed sealed and delivered just yet.  Something smells a bit fishy.  

 

 

Agreed.

 

The only thing you and most of the media are missing is that this is a scheme by the same hedge fund that miraculously discovered that Brian Davis had intellectual property that was worth $50 billion

 

Hedge funds are expressly prohibited from purchasing an NFL franchise by league bylaws. To circumvent those rules they are using Brian Davis as their front man.

 

Their leverage is the following:

 

1. An extra billion dollars to Snyder (which raises the value of all teams).

 

2. Indemnification for Snyder.

 

3. Their front man is African American and they hope this provides additional leverage to the league, the NFLPA, the media, and the general public for this to get done.

 

4. Snyders, greed, desperation and ethical void. He is the unpredictable

god of chaos. Who really knows what he’ll do?

 

5. The greed of the owners— if this deal goes through all of their franchises increase in real money value.

 

It has to be transparent, even to Snyder, that a man worth a mere $13 million a few months ago with multiple red flags for previous scams and unpaid partners/suckers is not suitable for NFL ownership. Most owners would have summarily dismissed this as a foul scheme that will collapse and make them look foolish while tarnishing their reputation and legacy.

 

But Snyder has nothing to lose. His reputation can’t get any worse. He’s the most despised businessman in America.

 

Do you really think any deed, no matter how despicable or unethical, is beneath him?

 

 

The whole scheme is similar to the plot of the movie Casino in which the mafia used local front men to be the official owners while they secretly ran everything.

 

 

 

 

BOTTOM LINE: I BELIEVE THE CHANCES OF BRIAN DAVIS BECOMING OWNER ARE ALMOST NILL.

 

However, they aren’t zero.

.

Edited April 17, 2023 by CommanderInTheRye

[Fan since a Fetus]

38 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

IMO, there's an elephant in the room, in regards to Davis:  The NFL, which would love nothing more than to have an African American majority owner in the league, is scrutinizing Davis' offer (if there really is one) with a fine tooth comb.  And a FINE tooth comb.  Because with all of Davis' reported shady issues, the NFL cannot afford to get this one wrong...if Davis actually does have that offer (I don't believe for one second that he does, but IF), they're going to double, triple, quadruple check EVERYTHING.  If Snyder kicks the Harris/Rales to the offer to the curb because of what Davis reportedly has, it's going to look terrible for the NFL if it falls through...and not just because a deal fell through and the NFL vetting process would look weak, but because a deal headed up by an African American fell through.  The NFL is going to catch strays because to some it'll look like the "good old boys" don't want an African American owner.  

 

And if Davis does get kicked to the curb outright because of his shady dealings or the League feels that his offer isn't strong enough and not real, the NFL is going to, again, look like the "good old boys" are keeping an African American owner from purchasing a team.  

 

From that perspective, the NFL might feel that they're between a rock and a hard place here, but to me everything is clear; Harris is legit, Steve A the Canadian seems like he's hemming and hawing and Davis isn't real.  But it seems odd that this deal isn't signed sealed and delivered just yet.  Something smells a bit fishy.  

If they allow Davis in and he starts running schemes, then that is a massive black eye for everyone. The NFL would look really dumb. They would have to get rid of an owner. The god ole boy network would look even worse because he’s black and it would be a huge black eye on black ownership for the future.

 

 Just because a massive amount of racial people will use it as evidence that a black owner shouldn’t be at the front of a NFL franchise. 
 

I really don’t think this will happen though. The NFL will have a black owner one day, but Davis will not be it. 

[CommanderInTheRye]

16 minutes ago, Fan since a Fetus said:

If they allow Davis in and he starts running schemes, then that is a massive black eye for everyone. The NFL would look really dumb. They would have to get rid of an owner. The god ole boy network would look even worse because he’s black and it would be a huge black eye on black ownership for the future.

 

 Just because a massive amount of racial people will use it as evidence that a black owner shouldn’t be at the front of a NFL franchise. 
 

I really don’t think this will happen though. The NFL will have a black owner one day, but Davis will not be it. 

 

 

We actually agree, though I would have worded it differently.

 

Like I said in an edit in bold at the end of my previous post, I don’t think this will happen, but we would be foolish not to consider the possibility that it could happen.

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by CommanderInTheRye

[Chris 44]

35 minutes ago, srtman04 said:

 

Dan Snyder back in 1999:  "The #1 Priority is Winning, and that's what we are gonna do!"   -  2022:  LOLOLOLOLOLOL  🤣

 

Little did we know that he was refencing "winning" as taking 800 million and turning it into 6 billion. Had nothing to do with winning on the field.

[CommDownMan]

57 minutes ago, srtman04 said:

 

Dan Snyder back in 1999:  "The #1 Priority is Winning, and that's what we are gonna do!"   -  2022:  LOLOLOLOLOLOL  🤣

 

 

This might be funny if I didn't live through it.  Ugg

[NewCliche21]

1 hour ago, srtman04 said:

 

Dan Snyder back in 1999:  "The #1 Priority is Winning, and that's what we are gonna do!"   -  2022:  LOLOLOLOLOLOL  🤣

 

 

To be fair, I think he meant that.  he just ****ing sucked at it and became/was exposed as a horrible human being for those 24 years.

[srtman04]

2 minutes ago, NewCliche21 said:

 

To be fair, I think he meant that.  he just ****ing sucked at it and became/was exposed as a horrible human being for those 24 years.

 

It is my hope that his reputation will get the best of him, even after this sale.   There's only so much suck and abyss the universe will tolerate.....

[Busch1724]

This whole Davis thing seems like it could the plot of an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The Gang Tries to Buy the Eagles. Put Paddy's Pub for sale for 50 billion and buy the Eagle while running various scams on people. 

[Andre The Giant]

 

[ntotoro]

10%... holy ****ernuts...

[Est.1974]

2 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

there's an elephant in the room, in regards to Davis: 

It appears that an actual elephant many have more credibility as a prospective owner. Not sure on the financial side though .

[Andre The Giant]

Both articles by Breer update the sale. 
 

The first is an interview with Rivera, pretty detailed. 
 

The second discusses how the owners view the Harris win as very good for the league. There were apparently concerns about some other bidders (he mentions Fertitta).

 

The whole tone is very matter-of-fact that Harris is the new owner-to-be. 
 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Andre The Giant

[Skinsinparadise]

31 minutes ago, Andre The Giant said:

Both articles by Breer update the sale. 
 

The first is an interview with Rivera, pretty detailed. 
 

The second discusses how the owners view the Harris win as very good for the league. There were apparently concerns about some other bidders (he mentions Fertitta).

 

The whole tone is very matter-of-fact that Harris is the new owner-to-be. 
 

 

 

It was a funny moment. But Rivera also took it as a sign of how deliberate he’d have to be in fixing everything that had gone rotten with the once-proud franchise—which now stands as his own acknowledgment of how messed up the place was. And as for what most needed fixing, most of it came back to, as Rivera saw, how people were treated.

Three years later, Rivera thinks, at a baseline, the Commanders have a much healthier working environment, and in part because it’s a more diverse environment.

“I think it’s having, when we went through it, the most qualified people,” Rivera says. “And whether those people are men, women, whatever their racial background is, or their ethnicity is, it’s just being able to say how diverse we’ve become. I think that’s important, too, and I think [team president] Jason Wright deserves a lot of credit as well.”

 

Wright, of course, is also an example of it, as is general manager Martin Mayhew. In 2021, the Commanders became the first team in NFL history with a Black team president and a Black GM.

But just as important, and probably more so given the nature of what Snyder and the organization were accused of, has been how the team hired women into key positions over the past few years, with one of those women being Rivera’s own daughter, Courtney. And so it was no mistake that Rivera pointed right to Courtney, when I asked how she and his wife, Stephanie, have played into Rivera’s wading through what his bosses were accused of, both in Carolina and in Washington.

“Just the fact that my daughter worked both at Carolina and here, you better damn well know I’m not going to let that f---ing s--- happen when she’s around,” he said, with real emotion. “That was my attitude. I was going to be protective. If I saw it, it didn’t matter who did it; I was going to put an end to it. And that really helped. Secondly, though, having my wife and daughter around, it was always trying to make sure I treated them the right way.

 

He also tried to put the team’s money where his mouth was in hiring women, and doing it not because they were women, but because, as was the case with Wright and Mayhew, they were the best people the team could find. One example he raised was with the 2021 hire of Dr. Barbara Roberts as team psychologist, whom Rivera says has become like an “auntie” to his players, and in particular to those who grew up in single-parent households and might be more apt to open up to a woman. That, as he sees it, is materially making the team better.

In other words, no, Rivera couldn’t make up for all that Snyder’s organization had done. But he could make sure it wasn’t happening on his watch, put people in place who would be as vigilant about it as he’d be and ensure the culture change he saw as necessary to meet his boss’s expectations would happen as planned.

 

Rivera also has seen the other side of a sale—what happens after the confetti is cleaned from the office floor and champagne bottles are in the trash.

Generally, the new boss wants his own people.

Rivera built a good relationship with Tepper after the billionaire arrived in Charlotte. In the end, that didn’t buy him much time—he was fired a little over 18 months after Tepper was approved to purchase the Panthers. That, by the way, happened after Rivera missed the playoffs in consecutive years, which is where the Commanders are now, with, presumably, Harris coming in. So, naturally, with the excitement over the sale, there’d be equal parts concern on the part of the people in football ops in Ashburn.

“I worry about my coaches, that I do worry about,” Rivera says. “I’m not worried about me; I’m not. I’ve done this long enough. I know.

 

This is my 27th year as a coach, I’ve been a coach and player in this league, and so I’m really not concerned about myself. I worry about these young coaches that I have, very good young guys that are working their butts off right now, and they’ve been working their butts off for the last two years. And we’re in a position where we feel like our head is above water.

“You feel like we did some good things, we finished on a high note, we did some roster building off a young quarterback’s contract, we’re able to do some pretty good things this offseason, get Daron [Payne] signed. … And then we went out and we signed several guys that we’re very happy about in free agency.”

 

Rivera then measured his words and added, “There’s a lot of good reasons to be excited. So I’m concerned for them, because they’re good, young guys that are working hard. We just gotta keep it going for them. Whatever’s expected, I want to be able to get a good feel for that, make sure everybody understands, this is what’s expected of us.”

The upshot, as Rivera sees it now, is that his players will be able to focus on football.

And while he didn’t want to use it as an excuse, he said there were times, and in particular last year, when the questioning of players on Snyder’s misdeeds, the team’s previous misconduct and the resulting potential sale were tough to manage.

[Skinsinparadise]

If Josh Harris can push the Commanders purchase over the goal line, the NFL will see that as a pretty significant win. The 2018 sale of the Panthers can be instructive on this one. Tepper landed the franchise despite being outbid by Carolina native Ben Navarro. The sale of the Broncos can be, too. The Pat Bowlen Trust bypassed an offer from Harris himself, at $5 billion, balking at the condition that the offer couldn’t be shopped, before accepting the Waltons’s bid at $4.65 billion.

So why would these owners turn down … more money?

 

Because as much good as it does for the owners to raise the bar on what it costs to buy a team, they remain selective as to who they want in their club. In the Panthers’ case, the idea of bringing in one of the country’s preeminent hedge-fund managers was appealing. In the Broncos’ case, the idea of adding royalty of American industry to their ranks was too much to pass up, even with someone as well-liked and respected as Harris willing to pay more.

Falling short but getting through all the vetting put Harris (a part owner of the NBA’s Sixers and NHL’s Devils already) in line, the same way Shad Khan once was when he fell short in an attempt to buy his hometown Rams, or Tepper and Jimmy Haslam were when they were minority owners of the Steelers. Coming out of the Broncos process, the other owners, many of whom already knew Harris, felt pretty strongly that he had the business acumen, and the capital, to add to their club and be a member in good standing over the long term.

He was, in other words, clean across the board, which isn’t always the case. (There were concerns over the business practices of Navarro, for one, in 2019, and this time around with Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, that affected how other owners would weigh in.)

Which is why, as a team president put it Thursday, Harris closing in on buying the Commanders was universally seen as “a good outcome for the league.”

It should, by the way, be a good outcome for fans of the franchise, too. It’s widely expected that with the departure of Snyder, D.C. politicians will open up again to the idea of building a new stadium at the old RFK site, which would be a boon for just about everyone, and could lead to a Super Bowl in the district. And I don’t need to tell people in D.C. what it could mean from a football standpoint.

 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/04/17/ron-rivera-discusses-dan-snyder-commanders-sale

 

 

[Andre The Giant]

 

[Skinsinparadise]

Sheehan and Finlay think Harris gets this, its done sooner than later and don't see Davis as a real threat.

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[NoVaSkins21]

Any news on when the agreement between the Harris group and Snyder will be finalized?  

[CommanderInTheRye]

Damn, I'm starting to get giddy again with all this good news about Harris/Rales today and virtually not a peep from anyone in the know on the so called "layaway plan".

 

Need to calm down.

 

Today's mantra:

 

"Slow and steady old man, wait for the announcement, no premature celebrations, be calm, be patient,  be calm...Slow and steady old man, wait for the announcement, no premature celebrations, be calm, be patient be calm... Slow and steady old man... "

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by CommanderInTheRye

[FrFan]

13 minutes ago, CommanderInTheRye said:

Today's mantra:

 

"Wait for the announcement, no premature celebrations, be calm, be patient be calm, slow and steady old man...Wait for the announcement, no premature celebrations, be calm, be patient be calm, slow and steady old man... "

 

 

 

 

Sorry, can't do that mantra

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by FrFan

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Skinsinparadise

[shemp nixon]

18 minutes ago, NoVaSkins21 said:

Any news on when the agreement between the Harris group and Snyder will be finalized?  

Before the draft, IMO.