WHY IS DAN Snyder still an NFL team owner? And how has he managed to survive allegations of a toxic club culture, sexual harassment, accounting misdeeds and the bungling of a new stadium proposal that once seemed inevitable and is now met with hard resistance by the public and officials in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.? Those questions have bewildered fans, league and team executives and some fellow owners, and the lawyers for former Commanders employees who say they were victims of the team’s culture of sexual harassment and abuse. “Our clients and the public at large deserve transparency,” said Lisa Banks, attorney for nearly a dozen former team employees and cheerleaders who publicly revealed the team’s toxic culture in 2020 and are still calling for the NFL to make public its investigative report on Snyder. “If not,” Banks said in a statement last year, “the NFL and Roger Goodell must explain why they appear intent on protecting” the team and “Dan Snyder at all costs.”
According to more than 30 owners, league and team executives, lawyers and current and former Commanders employees interviewed by ESPN, the fear of reprisal that Snyder has instilled in his franchise, poisoning it on the field and off, has expanded to some of his fellow owners. Multiple owners and league and team sources say they’ve been told that Snyder instructed his law firms to hire private investigators to look into other owners — and Goodell.
League sources say the NFL is aware that Snyder has claimed to be tracking owners. But none of the owners or sources would reveal how they learned of Snyder’s alleged effort to use private investigators. It’s also unclear how many owners are said to have been targeted, though sources say they believe it’s at least six.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member