The Nine Lives of Dan Snyder

Yin and yang

Dan Snyder always ultimately fails in football, this is empirical, just look at the results in eleven years of owning the Redskins. He is a successful businessman that made his billions working with business entities, he has no flair for consumer oriented business, he is like Microsoft to Dan Rooney's Apple. And football, media, amusement parks and restauranting are all ultimate consumer businesses.

But that wily Dan Snyder, for every FAIL he has a WIN, and it is always enough to keep us engaged and not abandoning ship in epic numbers. Let us walk the major FAIL-WIN combinations of the past eleven years:

Fire head coach Norval Turner in 2000 with a one hundred million dollar team at 7-6 and still in playoff contention: FAIL

Succumb to pressure to step back and hire Marty Schottenheimer in 2001 to run the whole football program: WIN


Fire Marty after one 8-8 season that ended with an 8-3 run, hire Steve Spurrier as head coach in 2002: FAIL

Rebound from two years of the Old Ball Coach by hiring Joe Gibbs as coach and team president in 2004 (op. cit.), reconnecting Redskins fans with days of glory: WIN


Completely botch the 32 day search for a new head coach in 2008, hiring an inexperienced offensive coordinator in Jim Zorn then promoting him to head coach when no other takers emerged: FAIL

Dump a main target of fan ire, shadow general manager Vinny Cerrato, hire his first actual general manager in Bruce Allen, who like Joe Gibbs before him also links Redskins fans to glory days as the son of former coach George Allen: WIN


The head coach Bruce and Dan hire after Jim Zorn is shitcanned in ten days may be a continuation of this WIN cycle, or it may be a quick turnaround back to FAIL. And if the FAIL does not come back around sooner, it will later.



Dan Snyder: AP Photo from here.