Player safety. CTE. Race norming. Colin Kaepernick. Donald Trump. Faux patriotism. Spygate. Deflategate. Breast Cancer Awareness. Gay rights. Officiating. You name it, and Roger Goodell has found the worst possible way to handle these situations. You can now add Goodell’s refusal to rid the NFL of Dan Snyder to that list.
On Thursday afternoon, the league announced the outcome of the investigation into the horrific workplace that’s been allowed to exist within the Washington Football Team for decades.
I’ll save you the time from reading all of it, as it’s a whole bunch of words that don’t say much. No one is getting suspended, and the team isn’t losing any draft picks. There’s just a measly $10 million fine that the team has to pay, which they’ll probably make back before Week 3. Snyder also gets to keep his team as “his wife will take over.”
Last July, the Washington Post’s bombshell report went into detail about the vile and toxic culture that was allowed to go unchecked in Washington, as sexual harassment and hostility toward women was the norm. Journalists, cheerleaders, employees — if you were a woman that worked anywhere near that team you were a potential target. Radio announcer Larry Michael, former director of pro personnel Alex Santos, Richard Mann II, a former assistant to Santos, former business president Dennis Greene; and former COO Mitch Gershman were alleged to have harassed or berated at least 15 women.
According to the Post:
“The allegations raised by [Emily] Applegate and others — running from 2006 to 2019 — span most of Snyder’s tenure as owner and fall into two categories: unwelcome overtures or comments of a sexual nature, and exhortations to wear revealing clothing and flirt with clients to close sales deals.”
Some of those allegations included:
- Applegate says Gershman routinely berated her for minor problems while complimenting her body.
- Texts from Mann to one female employee discuss an office debate over whether her breasts were real or not. Mann told her repeatedly that he intended to “squeeze her butt,” despite the woman’s objections.
- Six employees accused Santos of pressuring them to date him. Two female reporters, Rhiannon Walker of The Athletic and Nora Princiotti of The Ringer, told the Post that they had also been harassed by Santos.
In 2014, Adam Silver was just three months into his tenure as the NBA’s newest Commissioner. And after a TMZ tape revealed that Donald Sterling was once and for all the racist and bigot that he’s always been, it only took Silver four days to ban the former Los Angeles Clippers owner from the NBA for life and fined him $2.5 million for racist comments he made to his girlfriend.
“The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful. That they came from an NBA owner only heightens the damage, and my personal outrage,” said Silver in the April 2014 press conference. “Accordingly, effective immediately, I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA.”
The move was a bold and necessary one, as Silver needed to rid the league of Sterling and set a precedent as the new leader of the NBA. He also had a potential mutiny on his hands from Black players that were threatening to boycott games. In less than a week’s time, Silver had done something that the sports world had never seen before — while Snyder has been a pain in the NFL’s ass for years as Goodell has turned a willful blind eye.
“Over the past 18 months, Dan and Tanya have recognized the need for change and have undertaken important steps to make the workplace comfortable and dignified for all employees, and those changes, if sustained and built upon, should allow the club to achieve its goal of having a truly first-tier workplace,” Goodell said about the review. “I truly appreciate their commitment to fully implement each of the below ten recommendations, but the league also must ensure accountability for past deficiencies and for living up to current and future commitments.”
Is the NFL the most corrupt league in sports?
Yes.
Why?
Because Roger Goodell wants it that way.
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