Eliminating distractions is a hallmark of any good team. It’s not shocking to learn, then, that the Commanders struggle with it.
“All the stuff there with just the entire organization from ownership down, head coaching and G.M., there’s historically been a lot of drama there,” former Washington quarterback Alex Smith said on the Rich Eisen Show. “It’s a big market, obviously, the capital and a lot going on, and that organization is a really stories franchise and there’s a lot of turmoil and a lot of distractions.
“So to say the stuff in the building doesn’t infiltrate the locker room or out on the field would be crazy. That’s what happens everywhere. I think that’s what great organizations eliminate and the bad ones have a hard time with. All that noise creeps into the building. Yeah, it does. It does affect the product on the field.”
“There’s a lot of distractions — that entire organization, everything surrounding it — and obviously, deservedly,” Smith said. “It’s been flawed the last 20 years. There’s a lot of stuff going on there, a lot of distractions, and it makes it difficult to kind of focus in on the football.”
The Commanders were fined $10 million by the NFL last year after a hostile work environment investigation conducted by Beth Wilkinson found violations, though the full details were never revealed publicly. The Washington Post reported last year that 15 women accused the team of sexual harassment in the work place and that in 2008 a former senior executive took video of the teams’ cheerleaders during a calendar shoot while they were partially naked. Congress and the NFL are also both investigating sexual harassment allegations levied at Snyder from former employees. Three sponsors have cut ties with the Commanders in the past year, with Anheuser-Busch being the latest.
Washington has made just six postseason appearances since Snyder bought the team in 1999. They went 7-10 in 2021 after returning to the playoffs in 2020.
At league meetings, coach Ron Rivera said the situation is “a lot better than people are portraying it.”
“Quite honestly, I’m tired of it, I really am,” Rivera said, per ESPN. “But the only way to fix it is winning and that’s the truth.”