The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooke Considered Name Change

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Kevin today on the beginning of a week that should mark the last for Dan Snyder as owner of the Washington Commanders. Kevin also played and discussed Chiefs' QB Patrick Mahomes' comments over the weekend about losing Eric Bieniemy. Legendary Washington Post reporter/editor Len Shapiro jumped on with Kevin to talk about covering Snyder during the early days. During their conversation, Shapiro mentioned that before his passing, Jack Kent Cooke was considering changing the name of the team.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. It's pretty incredible to think about, but this week is going to be the final week that Dan Snyder owns our football team.

Seems so far-fetched over the years, especially when you considered his age. But by the end of this week, Dan Snyder is out and Josh Harris is in. Yeah, I believe that this thing is moving forward. You know, we had the reporting last week about some of the indemnification issues that still exist between Dan and the League, or Dan's sister, Michelle in the league. But I believe Thursday in Minneapolis, the owners will vote to ratify Josh Harris as the next owner of their franchise in Washington. And then you'll have a closing shortly thereafter where, you know, the documents, the final documents, get signed.

and the money gets wired. As I told you last week, remember, I was told by multiple sources that wiring instructions had already been sent. Now, keep in mind that Josh Harris has to, I would assume, I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume that all of his limited partners, you know, the 50 million to 500 million

or 400 million investors, I forget what Mitchell Rails has and Magic Johnson. I think Magic's got 250 million in it. But I would imagine that they did, send their money when Josh Harris asked if they would commit to being a part of the group. They're not going to let Josh Harris hold on to $50, $200, $300 million for three, four months. So he's still got to get all the money from them. I don't know.

Maybe there was earnest money put down. I don't know how that works actually when you've got that many limited partners and that big of a group. But they're probably putting it all together as we speak, getting. it all into one place and it'll be wired to Snyder in the amount of, I think it's $5.85 billion with, remember, the earnout on the other, you know, the amount that gets it up to $6.05 billion in a final sale if Snyder earns that piece out. And Snyder has a lot of debt. I would imagine that the senior debt on the team, now that it's being sold, that they will get paid perhaps at the closing as well.

We shall see. I don't know if we'll ever find out exactly how that transaction works. But, yeah, by the end of this week, it's amazing. I mean, I just, I think that it is one of those things that for so long seemed implausible. I said this morning on radio, I just sort of made this stupid. analogy, I guess, that it kind of feels like we've been locked up for 24 years for a crime that we didn't commit, and all of a sudden some advances in DNA proved our innocence, and so now we're getting out. But the issue is, you know, have we been institutionalized? Like Red said

to Andy Dufraim in Shawshank. And I riffed on that line, and I couldn't remember the line exactly that Red delivers about being institutionalized. So I actually looked it up. And here is the actual line when Red says, remember Brooks commits suicide once he gets paroled and he just can't make it on the outside. And Red said, quote, these walls are kind of funny.

First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes. It gets so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. They send you here for life. That's exactly what they take, the part that counts anyway. Yeah, in so many ways, Snyder took our love of this team away. And now the challenge for the new ownership group will be to get that back.

To get it back to the people that felt that way about the team in the past before we got locked up. And for a whole new group of much young. younger potential fans and customers. But very big week in D.C. sports. Feels a little bit anticlimactic, just a little bit, because we had those moments of, you know, celebration in the past when it was first reported that this was going to happen. And then when Snyder put out the press release and Harris put out the press release that they had, you know, a fully executed sales agreement.

But it will be official at the end. end of this week. A big deal in D.C. sports. Honestly, the most significant sports-related event we've had since probably the Nats won the World Series. I don't think that's an exaggeration. Dan Snyder selling the team has been at the top of this city's sports wish list for a long time, and the wish is coming true.

one guest on the show today, and I've already recorded the interview with Len Shapiro, and I think you're really going to like it. Len, of course, covered the Redskins for years, was an editor at the post for years, and I reached out to Len because when you start looking back 24 years ago when Snyder purchased the team to see who was reporting on it, Len was reporting on it. He was there, and he's such a historian anyway of kind of D.C. sports. and the team. Len Shapiro coming up, and I have to tell you that I think there are a couple of really interesting nuggets that Len gave us that have nothing to do really with the Snyder ownership.

Specifically, he gave us a nugget about George Allen and the end of the George Allen era here in Washington and how that happened. And then something I had never heard before, he tells us that Jack Kent Cook, and you'll hear his description of it, was actually considering changing the name before he passed away. So Len Shapiro coming up in the final two segments of the show today. You're going to hear, by the way, shortly I'm going to play for you, Patrick Mahomes on a podcast this weekend talking about the loss of Eric Bienn. You know, we got after Bianami a little bit last week because he wasn't really very prominent at all in that Netflix series quarterback. But I'm going to give you both sides, and I'm going to play some Patrick Mahomes from over the weekend on the loss of Eric Bianami.

He says something about Washington in his answer. You'll hear that coming up. The show today is presented by the Circa Milliman. and the Circa Survivor Pools. The Circa is just a beautiful, beautiful resort casino sports book, the biggest and best sports book in Las Vegas. And if you're out in Vegas, I would urge you to sign up for these contests.

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Circa property to sign up, but you don't have to make your picks from Vegas once the season begins. They're also offering the Circa Survivor Pool, $8 million in guaranteed money to the winners. All right. Eight million last year, two winners split $6 million. Typical pool. You pick one team straight up, no point spread every week to win. If the team loses or ties, you're eliminated. You can only pick each team once the entire season. Circa Million and Circa Survivor presented by the Circa Sportsbook and Casino Resort out in Vegas. All right, there was actually a little bit of news related to the team. I wanted to share that with you. This was a was Nikki Javala from the Washington Post earlier today, and Mark Maskey from the Washington Post

earlier today. Former Washington Commander's Ticket and Sales Executive Jason Friedman, remember him, filed a civil lawsuit in a county court this month accusing the commanders and one of their attorneys of defamation. Friedman previously accused the team and owner Dan Snyder of financial improprieties that were detailed in an April 2020 letter from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, then called the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to the Federal Trade Commission. The commanders denied the allegations. The team, this is from Friedman's attorneys as it relates to the lawsuit. Quote, the team responded to Mr. Friedman's allegations of financial improprieties by repeatedly

and publicly calling him a liar, accusing him of committing the federal crime, of perjury and falsely implying that he was terminated as part of the team's sexual harassment scandal that was being widely reported in the press. The team's false statements about Mr. Friedman, which it has repeated or caused to be repeated in various public forums, have devastated him personally and professionally. He suffers from severe anxiety and depression, will require ongoing medical treatment, and has been unable to find a comparable job due to the team. deliberate and malicious destruction of his reputation. The 15-page lawsuit filed July 7th in the Civil Division of the Loudoun County Circuit Court

names Pro Football Link. By the way, that's the commander's corporate name. And attorney John Brownlee as defendants. Remember Brownlee? He's the one that I, you know, sort of implied was more of a marketing and PR mouthpiece for Snyder. Because a lot of that stuff that he was spouting just was nonsensical at the time. But he really went on the attack, remember, on Friedman in particular. But he's one of the defendants here.

It requests a jury trial and says Friedman is seeking $7.5 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages plus interest, attorney's fees, expenses, costs, and any other damages that the court deems proper. The commanders, N. Brownley did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. Now, Lisa Banks, one of Friedman's attorneys, said, quote, Jason Friedman testified truthfully before Congress about his experiences with the Washington commanders. In response to his testimony, the team and its lawyer attempted to publicly destroy him by baselessly calling him a liar and questioning his moral character.

I'm confident that Mr. Friedman will be vindicated both by the NFL's investigation and a court of law closed quote. Yeah, that Brownlee was really something else. I mean, we talked a lot about him on the show during that time when the Snyders had him out there pitching on their behalf. But the whole pitch was just so poorly thought out. Remember, they wrote that nine-page letter to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, trying to pin everything on Bruce Allen.

And it was like, dude, you're attaching like emails and texts from various people. And these things are all from well before Bruce Allen got there. It's still amazing to me. I know we've talked about it, you know, forever now, two, three years. But why someone at some point in the organization didn't say, hey, maybe we should, you know, dial it back on pinning everything on Bruce? he got here well after the majority of the accusations were made. I mean, this guy Brownlee couldn't figure it out. Now, I guess the bigger issue would be,

is this kind of what Snyder is worried about? And he wants to be indemnified against any kind of settlement with Jason Friedman because here they are, you know, suing the team for defamation. And it's a defamation case based on a time frame in which Snyder still own the team. I personally don't see any of this, you know, delaying or putting in jeopardy the sale later this week. Now, you know, remember, and Ben reminded me of this on radio this morning. Ben Standing reminded me that initially for the vote, the owners were told to keep two dates available, July 20th and I think it was August 8th for the vote but then you know they did settle on July 20th

we'll see look I mean most of what you know Lisa Banks's clients the you know very brave women that came forward you know I think Neil and Rockville's pointed this out to me in the past I think a lot of that is basically beyond the statute of of limitations. And so this defamation case, though, isn't because the defamation took place here just in the last year, year and a half. So this would be kind of a way to try to get some, you know, to try to get something out of the team for this mess for everybody.

I don't know if they'll be successful or not. I'm not, you know, I'm not educated enough legally to understand whether or not. not Jason Friedman has a case or not. But anyway, so there you go. That was the news of the day. So I wanted to play something that I found earlier this afternoon. And it was Patrick Mahomes on a podcast, Rob Maddie's podcast. Rob Maddie is an AP NFL writer. And he's a podcast. And he's a podcast called Faith on the Field. And you'll hear his question about Eric Bienemy, and then you'll hear Patrick Mahomes's response.

How different is it going to be without E.B., Eric Bianami, over there on the sideline with you guys? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely going to be different. I mean, he was a voice that has been in this locker room my entire career. And so to lose that voice, I mean, I'm excited for Washington because I know how inspiring that he can be and how smart he was for us. Luckily for us, I mean, I think Coach Reid does a great job of finding great coaches to supplement some of that that great leadership that Coach B. Enemy had for us, and I'll trust in Coach

Reed to have the right plan to kind of do whatever we can to get ourselves in that right moment again. And so it's definitely going to be tough losing them. I have so much respect for E.B. He was such a great coach, but a great person. But I'm excited for these other guys to step up and be those coaches that they've learned from him and learn from Coach Reed to be. Come to any conclusion you want on what you heard Mahomes say. Parse all of his words until your heart's content. But the bottom line is he said,

it's definitely going to be different. He was a voice that has been in this locker room my entire career, and so to lose that voice, I mean, I'm excited for Washington because I know how inspiring he can be and how smart he was for us, closed quote. He also talked about how Andy Reid's good at supplementing the staff. Look, many of you got after me a little bit on Twitter last week for being highly critical of BNami from that quarterback series, the Netflix series. I don't think I was highly critical at all, in my opinion.

I was just observational. I was highly observational. I gave you the caveats of highly edited show. And prior to watching the final episode, which was the AFC Championship and Super Bowl, episode that, you know, there was more to come and maybe I would change my mind. And Bianami was more of a presence in that final episode. But look, I think the bottom line is, because we heard this from our good friend Stephen Spector, who runs a sports talk station in Kansas City, used to work for us at 980, work with us, is that Matt Nagy is Mahomes' guy. And they were

moving in the direction of making Matt Nagy officially the OC again because that's what he was before he took the job with the Bears. I have no idea what it would have meant for Biennesty, but it probably would have meant a different role, a reduced role, with Nagy back. And, you know, it's very possible that, you know, and by the way, I'm not even saying that it may not even be likely that Eric Biennamy not only is smart and inspiring, as Mahomes said, but was significantly influential in his years in Kansas City. But stylistically, it's very possible that he wore thin on everybody, that it got a little bit old, and that he needs a new place.

He needs a new set of eyes and ears. And by the way, needs to get out underneath the big shadow of Andy Reed. And for that matter, maybe Matt Nagy, too. I'm not predicting that Eric Bianamy is going to be a complete bust. I am doing what I did last summer with Carson Wentz, for sure. I'm identifying the fact that there are red flags. That's just a fact. If you can't deal with it, I can't help you.

But nobody else wanted to hire him. And it's questionable as to what his role would have been, had Washington not hired him in Kansas City. But again, he was with them for a while. He was with Andy Reed. There's got to be a lot that rubs off from them. And that staff, the problem, of course, here is that he doesn't have Patrick Mahomes and he doesn't have Travis Kelsey and he doesn't have to re-kill, et cetera, et cetera. But I hope it works out for Eric B. Enemy, it would be a great story for him to prove so many wrong. But we'll see, and we're not going to know anything until they start to play real games. By the way, and I think I've made this point before, it's also possible we're not going to know that much if he doesn't

have a real quarterback. You know, no, sorry, but Scott Turner, for all of you that think he was just terrible. He had eight quarterbacks that played here during his tenure as offensive coordinator, and none of them were any good. When you don't have a good quarterback, it's pretty hard to be a good offensive coordinator. I mean, there are only a few examples of it, Kyle Shanahan being the most recent example of it. I did want to mention real quickly that the Wimbledon final was great. I didn't watch it live. I was actually playing golf,

but I watched the fifth set when I got home yesterday. What a set. Man, Jokovic, with that breakpoint in the second game, up one love, and having kind of an easy swinging volley at the net, that was the opportunity. If he breaks there and he doesn't miss that shot and goes up too love, I think he goes on to win it.

But Alcaraz was great. He really was. Jokovic, very classy in defeat, not unexpected. Alcoraz is the new big thing in tennis. He won the U.S. Open. Everybody believes he's going to be great on clay, but he cramped up at the French this spring in his match against Jokovic. But I will tell you this, that having a new face in men's tennis, even though it's not an American face, but a new face in a new face in a new face. talent who's already won now two majors. When we get to the U.S. Open end of next month in Flushing Meadow, it is going to be a big time showdown between Alcaraz and Jokovic. And people are going to be

rooting for that final. And if that's the final, that will be an anticipated tennis match. One of the bigger ones that I think we've had in a while. I think the Fed Djokovic, Nadal Jokovic, Nadal Federer finals, they all sort of run together, and they did sort of run together after a while. Alcraz is 20 years old. He's not the youngest that's ever won Wimbledon. That was Boris Becker. You know, Becker was 17 when he won Wimbledon in 85, and Becker was thought to be the next great thing in tennis.

And he was, but there were a lot of great things in tennis during that era. He went on to win six majors, okay, six. So those that are trying to act like Alcarez were at the beginning of another Jokovic Federer Nadal run. Those guys have 23, 22, and 20. Then it's Sampress at 14. Like maybe Alcaraz is talented enough

to get to double digits, but Becker only got to six. But that was a great fifth set. And I understand it was a great match start to finish. Some of the shot making was just incredible. I'd love to see the rematch in New York in September, in early September. All right, let's get to Len Shapiro, and we'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show brought to you by MyBooky.

Go to MyBooky.com or MyBooky.ag. Use my promo code Kevin, DC, to secure a first deposit bonus of up to $1,000. MyBooky's got everything you need for the upcoming. coming NFL season and college football season. I mentioned a few weeks ago, Washington being a five and a half point favorite in week one over Arizona. The total is now 39 and a half in the Arizona-Washington season opener. That is the lowest total by a couple of points in week one of the NFL.

They're not expecting Washington and Arizona to light it up offensively in the opener. Use Kevin D.C. as the promo code and you can secure an initial deposit bonus of up to $1,000. Jumping on with us right now is Len Shapiro. Len was a long time sports reporter, sports editor at the Washington Post covering the skins forever, covering golf forever, Len a legend in terms of the Washington Post and covering sports in this town. And I just thought about you to reach out to you this week because you really were involved in the early days of Dan Snyder covering the team. You're on several bylines for the post when Snyder purchased the team back in the summer

of 1999. So I want to get to that in a moment. But, you know, I was checking out your Wikipedia page before we started. You were a copy editor in 1969 for the Washington Post-Lend. That's quite a run you had from 69 until I think 2010. Well, who's counting? Yeah. Actually, I actually joined the Post as a part-timer while I was in.

graduate school at the University of Missouri, which had a program in D.C. And I took a job as a part-timer taking high school scores over the telephone on Friday nights and Saturdays. And when I got my degree, they hired me full-time. So, and I started covering high schools originally. So what year was... So I'm just curious, you were there for the Watergate. break-in and Woodward and Bernstein and everything that followed during those years from 72, you know, from 72, June to 72 through the, you know, the Nixon resignation in August of 74, even though you were writing sports, you were with the paper. What do you remember from those days? Well, I remember it was a team effort, and I'm not trying to tell you that anybody in the

sports department had much to do with unseating Richard Nixon, but everybody in the building knew that, you know, if you went to a cocktail party, if you went to a tailgate, if you did something, overheard something, don't be shy, tell somebody about it, because the boys, as in Woodward and Bernstein, it might lead to something. So it was a very exciting time at the paper. For me, I mean, I was paying attention, of course, like everybody else, but I was also covering Navy football. I had a little bit of the Redskins at one point. I started covering the Redskins full-time as the beat reporter in 1973 the year after they went to their first Super Bowl and lost the Miami Dolphins, who I also covered, by the way, the year they won 17-0 and beat the Redskins.

That was my first Super Bowl as well. Well, so you were young at the time, but were there any pieces of influence? at cocktail parties that you came across that you shared or not? Nothing that ever made it into print. I can tell you that, Kevin. No, no, not really. They did a pretty damn good job without us. Yeah.

So 73 was the first year that you were on the beat. I didn't intend on doing this with you, but now I'm more interested. We'll get to Snyder in his exit here shortly. So you've got George Allen and those Redskin teams, and they're coming off that Super Bowl loss to Miami. You know, Jurgensen's still on the team. Sonny still calls the game in 74 when they beat the Dolphins at RFK Stadium, his Super Bowl. But give me some of the things that you remember about those teams

and covering George Allen in particular. Well, I always tell people George Allen made me a much better reporter because he never gave us anything. He never announced trades, really. He never announced who he was cutting, who he was bringing in. You sort of had to really work the phones to find out what was going on. We used to call, our nickname among the media for George was, we called him Nixon with a whistle.

He was paranoid. You know, he had his own security guy, Ed Boynton, who was a former Long Beach, California policeman who had hooked up. up with George after Ed had retired from the police force in California with the Rams, came east with him. His nickname was 007, of course. James Bond was Big Ben, too.

And it was a very interesting experience. George closed practices a lot. So you really had a hustle to get the information. And he made me a better reporter. He made all of us better reporters. He drove us crazy. Did he like any of you? I think he tolerated this.

I don't think he liked anybody. He was very suspicious. He was very suspicious. He didn't have any cozy kind of... The closest I would say to any kind of relationship was with the Mory Segal, Mo Segal, longtime Washington Star columnist who actually started out the post. They were friendly. We were friendly enough, but I never got invited to his house for dinner. I can tell you that.

Well, he certainly didn't want to be home for Christmas, celebrating Christmas. We remember those NFL films highlights. You know, I've talked a lot in recent years about how, you know, I'm a child of the 70s, and this city was so much different back then. And look, you were covering the number one story in town, but there was no real number two. I mean, there was no baseball team. The bullets in 73 were just moving to Landover from Baltimore. There was no hockey team until 74. What was it like in the early to mid-70s covering sports in this town? Well, it was, you know, covering the Redskins obviously was great because, you know,

everybody paid attention, including our editor, Ben Bradley, the legendary, my hero, really, and sat in the owner's box with Edward Ben-O-Williams, who was the team president and a great attorney, Jimmy Hoffa's lawyer, among others, who then went on and bought the Baltimore Orioles when Jack and Cook showed up. But it was a lot of fun. The whole town was energized by George Allen, obviously. he came in right away, turned the team around. One of my first assignments, Kevin, was the Vince Lombardi death watch in 1969. I was sent to Georgetown Hospital every day after our first edition came out,

just to make sure that Mr. Lombardi didn't die before our final deadline at 2 o'clock in the morning, so he would have, I could call in and give them some information. but Lombardi came in 69. He was replaced the only year he coached the team, replaced by a guy named Bill Austin, who wound up being George Allen's offensive line coach for quite a while. And then George Allen came in in 1971, turned the team around, turned the town around.

You know, he had all these old gray beers that he, you know, he didn't believe in draft choices. So he started the Over the Hill gang. People like Diren Talbert and Ron McDowell and Mike Bass and Kenny Houston, all these guys came in in the first couple of years. And they became a contender and came very close to – had a really good shot at winning that Super Bowl. But lost in 14 to 7 in a game.

game that still remember for the craziest play in Super Bowl history, when Garrow Yoprimian, the Dolphins kicker tried to throw a pass that was intercepted by my friend Mike Bass and returned for a touchdown. Yeah, by the way, how about Mike Bass getting into the ring of honor last year, which last year or the year before I'm losing track? Yeah, it was last year. Yeah, but number 41 opposite, number 37, Pat Fisher. Pretty decent starting corner.

So, you know. Right, and you also had Brigg-Owins 23. Of course. And then, you know, eventually Kenny Houston came around. Jake Scott, who was the MVP of Super Bowl 7, played for Washington. I've always felt, and a lot of older people have pushed back on me and said, No, no, no, no. The Redskins, the love affair with the Redskins really started with Sonny Jurgensen in the 60s.

and I don't, you know, I don't remember that. I don't remember George Allen's. That's the first year I remember is 71, his first year here. And I think George Allen, and I know Lombardi was here two years previous to that and had the town excited. But I think George Allen, with what he did in winning and then establishing what was the best rivalry in the league over a long period of time, I think that was the beginning of the true power. passion, you know, the mass passion for this team.

Do you agree or disagree? No, I agree. Now, again, I was not around in the 60s, but they were bad. They were bad. They didn't win. They had, you know, it was an offensive circus, Sunny and Charlie Taylor and Bobby Mitchell and, you know, they had a great offense, but they couldn't stop anybody. Sam Huff was on that team, and he couldn't stop anybody. But, yeah, George really galvanized the town.

And again, you mentioned it earlier. We lost the baseball team. And there wasn't a heck of a lot to root for. Maybe, you know, the University of Maryland had had a great revival under Lefty-Gruzell. But the senators had left town. The Post started to cover the Orioles in the early 70s. But the town wasn't quite ready to adopt Earl Weaver and Cal Ripkin. and Dedy Murray and draw them to their hearts as they would have if the team had been the Washington

Senators or the nationals. So, yeah, the Redskins had it pretty much themselves. We gave it unbelievable coverage. I was writing two and three stories a day. We would write six or seven stories after a game, sidebars, front page, lots of photos. It was on. There was no sports talk radio back then for the most. part. But all the local TV stations had name, big name, or big name in this town anyway. You had

people like Glenn Brenner, George Michael, Warner Wolf, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, sports at 6-11 usually got four or five minutes. Now you're lucky to get 35 seconds. Right. So it was a big deal in the Redskinned. And George knew how to get, George knew how to make, you know, as much as he distrusted the press, he also knew how to use the press and used the media, and knew what a headline was and knew how to make headlines. And, you know, he would taunt the cowboys.

He would ask some of his players. He would tell them what to say to us to get them going. You know, Roger, Diron Talbert was sort of his George's voice. He would tell Diron to say something like, well, you know, they have to use the shotgun because Staubeck has trouble reading defenses, and that would get in the paper, and that would rile up the Cowboys. So, you know, he had a lot of fun with it. We had a lot of fun with it, but he was total paranoid.

You know, I don't know if you've seen the football life special on Roger Stawback, but my favorite part of it is when they did a segment on the rivalry between the Cowboys and the Redskins. and Stauback for the first time and the only time during that show, at least the edited version became just super intense and competitive looking. And he talked about how he got knocked out of that Thanksgiving Day game, and Clint Longley came in and how they lost the 72 title game at RFK. And then he said, but you know what? Every other game that mattered the rest of the decade, you checked the record.

We won that game. And so that was a genuine, for professional sports, I mean, that was legitimate hatred between two organizations. Oh, absolutely. And it started along before George Allen got there. There were a lot of shenanigans going on early on back in the 60s as well. But, yeah, they didn't like each other. The players, you know, for example, Diron Talbert had a brother who played. played for the Cowboys. So he hated

the Cowboys just because the Cowboys, I think it'd cut his brother at one point. And it transferred that with John Wilbur, an offensive guard, had played for the Cowboys. And they traded him to the Redskins, and he hated the Cowboys. So it was palpable in the locker room. And they made it very

very clear to us that this was not just an act, but that they really didn't like them. They were upset with Tech Schram, who was the general manager, the Cowboys. He used to spend the pregame warmups standing very close to where Mark Mosley was kicking because he thought he had a piece of lead in his show, the kicker. So there are all kinds of stuff going on. You know, here's so many of these stories, I think a lot of

my listeners, you know, have heard, not that they don't like hearing him again because they love hearing them from people like you. But here's one that I don't remember, and you'll have the answer to, I think. When George Allen got fired at the end of the 77 season, they'd gone to the playoffs in 76 and they lost as a wild card team at Minnesota in a pretty one-sided beat down. But in 77, they went nine and five and they actually really had a season that was almost overachieving for what they were. They didn't make the playoffs, but they were still a nine and five football team. in a pretty good football team. If you recall, at the end of that season,

they needed the giants to beat Chicago to get into the postseason. And in the snow and ice at the Meadowland, Chicago won an overtime. And that knocked Washington out. Ironically, Jack Pardee would become the next coach. He was coaching Chicago at the time. But why did Edward Bennett Williams

ultimately fire Allen after what was a pretty good season overall, even though it wasn't a playoff season? Okay, I'm going to tell you, well, I'm glad you asked that question. I'm not sure he actually fired him. Yeah, he did fire him, but there's a big asterisk there. During that season, toward the end of the season, there was a Saturday practice. There was a Friday practice, and George came out and said, you know, fellas, I have never seen my son Bruce Allen play a college football game.

I am going to do something I've never done before. I'm not going to come to practice tomorrow's Saturday. I'm going to go down to the University of Richmond and watch my son play football. You know, it's a Saturdays to walk through, but the assistants could handle it. Okay, fine. All right, flash forward, and we didn't think anything of it. He comes back, and, you know, the whole thing blows up eventually, and Alan goes to the Rams.

Well, George Allen on that Saturday did not go to watch his son play football. George Allen, and I got this from a very good source, who's no longer with us so I can tell you, it was a chauffeur and told me about a year later when I was doing a big magazine story about the final plays of George Allen. It was supposed to be sort of like a takeoff on the final days of Woodward and Bernstein and Nixon. George Allen's chauffeur, a former policeman named Jenkins, told me that he had driven George Allen, that Friday after practice to take a red eye out to see, out to Los Angeles, where he was going to meet with Carol Rosenblum, who then owned the Rams, former Colts owner, and George went out there basically for a job interview.

George was very upset with the Redskins. He thought that his original contract with the team called for him to get a new contract that would include a piece of the ownership of the team, small percentage of it, which Edward, Edward, well, Edward Bennett-Williams, it was not the case. Blah, blah, blah, blah. In any case, George Allen left and was going out of town, whether he was fired or not.

He would have quit. Alan was, yes, Edward Bennett-Williams did indeed, quote, fire him, but only after it became apparent he was going to the Rams. Wow. But he never... And you could look it up. The story was in the magazine, the Washington Post Magazine. magazine. I did it the following year. I talked to Jack Kent Cook about it. I talked to Rosenblum

about it. They all confirmed it. And that's what happened. He was preparing to go to Los Angeles and go back to the Rams. You know, so there are two things about that. Number one, he never did coach the Rams. He got fired during the preseason. Correct me if I'm wrong, right? Wasn't it that? Yes, yes. Well, he got into a little dispute with Rosenblum's son. And that's a idea for any coach to get it, to have some kind of a feud with the owner's offspring and a future possible owner. So that didn't work out. And the players sort of rebelled against these two-a-day practices that were brutal, George, the Rams players. Well, did he get, did he get paid? Well, that's a good question. He got fired during the preseason. Right. I'm assuming he had

something in his contract. He must have done paid off. Yeah. You know, that I, that I can't answer. You know, as you were talking about, you know, Alan, you know, going out there, and obviously he had a desire to return back to L.A. Over the years that Bruce Allen was here, you know, under Snyder, I always got the sense listening to Bruce talk that the family loved living in Los Angeles and that the Rams for the family were really the team that they grew up with. I mean, look, Bruce had fond memories of the Redskins days. And so does the daughter and so did George, you know, Alan Jr. But did you get that sense, too, that really L.A. they considered was home? Oh, sure. I mean, that's where George, you know, he went back to Palis Verdes.

Right. Where they had a beautiful home. That's where he died, basically. Yeah. On a New Year's Eve, by the way, and one year, after going for a jog when he had pneumonia. but that's another story. Death by Gatorade because he had been drenched by his Long Beach State. Right, Long Beach State. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, they like California. George loved, oh, you know, George, yeah, and George, you know, he went to college out there. He went to Whittier College. Right. So, yeah, they were Angelinos, I guess, and the kids liked it very much, too. He lived in a great place.

What's not to like about Los Angeles? Do you ever think, I've talked about this a lot, just, you know, the fine line between the incredible Super Bowl run and the Gibbs era, and what would have happened had Dallas not come back from 13 down in the finale of 1979. Because if Washington holds on and wins that game, if the Redskins win that game, they're the one seed, basically. They've got home field advantage in the 79 playoffs. they might go to the Super Bowl and Pari might be here for a while. I know that Party wasn't necessarily beloved by the players, but if they hold on to,

were you, I'm assuming you were at that game in Dallas covering that game for the post. I actually was not. By that time, I was an editor. Oh, you were an editor at that time. Yeah, I stopped covering Jack Partee's first year was my last year on the beat. Got it.

Full time. And so, no, I had, decided I wanted, I wanted to try and become a sports editor. And so I went inside for about 10 years and then came back and did a lot of coverage. But still, part D. Yeah, they very well could. They very well could have. But, you know, I don't think, Jack still had a lot of friends on the team.

Yeah, there were some people who were not happy with him. And Kenny Houston was very unhappy with him because of the way his career ended, Jack didn't play him in his last game, which was not a good thing. and Jack admitted later he made a huge mistake. But I think more of it was Jack Kent Cook was not totally enamored with Jack Pardy. And I know for a fact that Bobby Betherd was definitely not enamored with Jack Pardt. What did you think and what did those that covered the team think when Bobby Betherd hired Joe Gibbs? I, you know, nobody really knew much about Joe other than, you know,

He had a great reputation as an offensive coordinator and ran Eric Coriel, you know, his great offense with the Chargers. But he was not well known. And then when he started out at 0 and 5, you know, I suspect most of the media thought, uh-oh, you know, what have they gotten themselves into? Just as Gibbs and Betherd both thought when Cook summoned them out to his Middleburg estate, when they were Owen 5, they both thought they were getting fired that night, turned out, Cook said, what can we do to help you guys, and what should we do?

And they turned it around when 8-and-8, and the rest, as they say, it's history. But, you know, I don't remember, I don't think people were complaining much about Gibbs or Bether for that. Beth, Bether had a great record. You know, he had helped fuel the Dolphins to that Super Bowl in 1972. He was the personnel guy. So I think there was a wait-and-see with Joe, and they didn't have to wait real long that first season, and then the rest fell into place. I mean, I was about to say, well, Dan would have fired him, but the truth is he didn't fire Marty at 0-N-5.

He waited until the end of the season at least and ignored the fact that they won eight of their final 11 games. So let's talk about Dan Snyder. You, you know, you're in a couple of the bylines from the early days with Maskey and others. What do you remember about sort of the transfer of the team to Snyder, which was preceded by the Milstein situation, but just give everybody kind of a sense of those days. And actually, Len, I'd like to start with why. Why do you think Jack Kent Cook didn't make it easier for John to hold on to the team? I think Jack Kent Cook, and people have told me this,

and Cook's lawyer who's no longer with us, once told me that he was not sure that John, number one, was totally dedicated to wanting to do it or could do it, which is part of it. the bigger reason was that Jack Kent Cook wanted to be remembered forever, and so he decided to set up his own foundation. And the $700 million that probably should have gone to John to allow him to keep the team, instead the sale price, $700 million, went to set up the Jack Can't Cook Foundation, which is a very noble philosophy of providing scholarships to very poor and minority lower-class poverty-stricken students who otherwise couldn't have afforded to go to college or graduate school.

There's a beautiful building in Lansdown, out in Leesburg in his name, and I think Jack may even thought that might have been his only ticket to heaven if he did something like that. And I really do sort of believe that. case. That's part of the reason. I'm just not sure he was convinced that John wanted to do it or would be able to do it. By the way, he came very close. Yeah, he came very close to generating the funds to purchase the team anyway, but not close enough. That's exactly right. By the way, you said you thought that may have been what he thought would create the ticket to heaven. Was he really, how difficult

of a person was he ultimately? Like, you know, we all yearn for the days of Jack Kent Cook because he hired Bobby Bethard and let him do his job and they won Super Bowls and we've had this 24-year nightmare with Dan Snyder, but he was far from a

perfect person, right? He was not a nice man, okay? He was a great owner. Okay, he was a great owner. He let his people do their work and do their jobs and pay them well and gave them whatever they needed. And that's what you want a professional franchise owner to be. But he was not very nice about the way he treated some people, including some of his employees.

He was not nice the way he treated some of the women in his life, including the Bolivian Firecracker, Marlena, including the mother of his now 30-something-year-old daughter. and he could be very difficult with writers. And I can tell you, my very first experience with him, I was actually doing reporting for that magazine piece I told you about on the final days of George Allen and got Jack Cook on the phone. Surprisingly, got him on the phone the first time I called him. I thought I'd have to go through a bank of 40 secretaries to get to him.

Picked up the phone, talked to me, answered my question, for about 15 minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Cook. I really appreciate your time. Now, young man, I'd like you to read back everything I just said to you. I said, well, Mr. Cook, we don't do that. He says, young man, I want you to do it. Otherwise, we're going to have a problem.

I said, well, we don't do that at the post. Mr. Cook, you're just going to have to trust me. Young man, if there is an eye undotted, if there is a T-uncross, I'll have your job. well, you know, I managed to stay another 30 years, so he didn't get my job. And I guess I get, I guess I quoted him properly. But that's the kind of guy he was. He liked to intimidate people.

He liked to make sure you knew that he owned the Chrysler building and a lot of other things. And he was not one of my favorite people, quite frankly. All right. Let's get to the spring and summer of 1999. 24 years ago. you were covering the purchase of the team by Dan Snyder. We'll get to that and all of your memories of those days right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

All right, so let's get to the team is being sold. It's the spring and summer of 1999. You know, walk everybody through how Snyder ultimately ends up with the team. And then I want to get into some of your early impressions of him. Yeah, well, I mean, Snyder obviously was a minority partner with Howard Milstein, a New York banker who had a lot of money, owned the Islanders, but couldn't get three-quarter majority of the owners because he had a reputation as being rather litigious. He liked to sue people. Little did they know that so did Dan Snyder. But at that point, Snyder was a young late 30s, up and coming had a lot of money, had sold his company, it was about to sell his company. And so the league, Paul Taggleaboo, went to Snyder and said, if you can get together a group, you know, we'll tell you that the owners will approve the sale to you. Okay, fine, he did that. I remember covering the league meeting when he got the team.

He was fine. He was sort of affable. He was available to us. You know, he came out and talked a little bit. But shortly thereafter, you know, this thing got to him. and he didn't do so well. He literally disappeared from view. One of the first things I remember was going out to Redskins Park.

And again, remember, I was at that point not really, I was still, well, I was reporting again, but I wasn't covering the team full time. I was covering the league more than I was covering the Redskins. I was the NFL B-writer. But I covered that meeting. after the meeting and went after Ritzkin Park that fall, and they had a PR guy named Carl Swanson, who came into the press room one day and said a gentleman,

and it was more gentlemen than ladies. Maybe he said, ladies and gentlemen, I don't remember. But I do remember him saying, Mr. Snyder would prefer that you not call him Dan. He'd like to be known as Mr. Snyder, at which point I sort of laughed at myself, yeah, right, okay. I don't think I ever called him Mr. Snyder, as long as I ever dealt with him.

But it was always Dan. How are you, Dan? Nice to see you, Dan. Nice win, Dan. Too bad about the lost, Dan. Made it a point, and a lot of my colleagues sort of felt the same way. He was a jerk almost from the get-go. He had no patience for a lot of things.

He treated people terribly. I'm not a little bit surprised about the sexual harassment stuff and all the other stuff that's gone on that essentially has forced him to sell the team. Thank goodness. He was, I tell people he made Jack and Cook sort of looked like Shirley Temple in comparison. He was not nice to his employees. A lot of people got canned.

Firing Morty Schottenheimer was a terrible mistake. I thought particularly after Marty got, you know, 1-8 of the last 11 after going on in 5. He made some terrible decisions. He brought in Jeff George. What a disaster that was. He kept signing big names. it was like he was collecting baseball and football cards to have on his roster, except they were all at the end of their careers.

They all got huge signing bonuses and big salaries, and none of them wanted to play very much, including Dion Sanders, including Bruce Smith. I mean, you can go on and on with the names. But Dan Snyder, in my mind, didn't know what he didn't know. He thought he knew it all. He was a very cocky little guy. He made a lot of money, good for him.

but he didn't know anything about football other than being a fan, and that puts no work in the NFL. When you and Andy decide to update that great classic New York Times best-selling D.C. Sports List book, which was great. You know, there could be a whole, there could be several pages of Dan Snyder lists, but I'll ask you at least one, because I did this on radio this morning with callers. when was or what was the first moment where you kind of knew deep down this guy was going to be a major problem as an owner for this fan base almost from the get-go you know well that you know the Dan stuff you know call me Dan don't call me Dan

but i'll tell you the the big the one that really wrangled me more than anything um i was on the All of Fame selection committee for 30 years. And we took that job pretty damn seriously. You know, you meet the Saturday before the Super Bowl and make your decisions. Art Monk was up for, had been a finalist five or six times and never made it. I was the guy, and then occasionally David Elfin, I had to give the speech to present him to my fellow selectors, most of whom, in fact, 99% of whom were media people. and one

maybe the fifth or six year that Art didn't get in the Ann Snyder put out a letter basically a press release saying these selectors have no idea what they're doing they're more, they're idiots, blah blah blah just denigrated the whole process

lambasted the guys who make up the committee and I called them up and I said you know why would you do something like that? You think that's going to help get Art Monk enough votes next year to get into the Hall of Fame, Dan? You really think that's going to, what you just did is going to help you. You can feel that way.

If that's how you feel great, do you have to put out a press release and piss off, you know, 32 different people from 32 different franchises? Well, you know, that's how I feel. I know, why would you do something like that? He says, you know why? Because I own the team and I can do whatever I want to do. boom, down went the phone, and that was probably one of the last conversations I ever had with him. The good news is that Monk obviously got in a couple of years later, as we all knew we would.

Very few people get in on the first ballot, as you know, and Art probably should have gone in earlier, but, and that was Snyder in a nutshell to me. He just thought he could sort of bogart his way into every situation, make his feelings known, and things would change. They never changed for him, and it just got worse. every year. What do you think his biggest flaw was? I mean, there's so many of them to choose from, but what do you think ultimately

was the cause for essentially chasing away one of the most rabid fan bases in sports over a quarter of a century? Honestly, I don't know. I think it's called eubris. I own the team. I can do whatever I want

to do. You know, he thought he made, you know, the best thing he did was to bring Joe Gibbs back and Joe came back because he needed the money to keep up his NASCAR team going. And then got out with a big chunk of money, and that kept it going for a long time and still going. But I think Dan thought, you know, he knew it all. He thought he was an owner. You know, he talked to Jerry Jones alive, who I'm sure, you know, flim flammed him more times than Dan probably even knew he was being flim flammed on things.

he just had an ego you know it's eubris ego uh narcissism whatever you call it uh but dan thought he knew it all and he knew nothing he knew and he knew uh he just didn't know enough

to make good decisions and he brought in people who had no business being here who shouldn't have been here uh you know the Steve Spurrier you know what a disaster

I mean come on then the old Seattle quarterback he brought in. Zorn. His name, I'm totally blank. Jim Zorn. Pardon? Jim Zorn.

Yeah. Zorn, thank you. Jim Zorn. Yeah. Disaster. One disaster after another. And, you know, the great incident when he put a bunch of vanilla ice cream outside the office of Mike Nolan, the offensive coordinator, because he thought the offense was too vanilla.

Defensive. Yeah. good for Nolan, you know. Yeah. He didn't stay very long. And he was a terrific, a pretty good coach. Anyway, he just, he just rankled people who got them and said,

not a nice man. It is, I mean, for somebody who lived as a beat reporter and then as an editor and lived in this town for as long as you didn't, saw how important this thing was to this city, how it was probably the biggest unifier in this city. Like I've always, I've said in recent years, The most impossible thing happened, and it should be studied, and that is he literally eviscerated the most passionate fan base in the NFL at one point in 24 years.

I mean, if I said to you in 1999, oh, by the way, by 2023, nobody's going to care, the stadium's going to be empty, and the fans that are there are going to be rooting for the opponent, we both would have checked ourselves in, or checked each. the other one in? No, there's no question. I mean, you know, he had one point, I don't have how many people were on the waiting list. You know, 60, 70, 80,000 people at RFK.

And he, you know, that's what, hey, you lose. You keep losing. You're going to lose. More dumb decisions, you know, the RG3, you know, playing the guy, and then letting him come back in the game. Now, Dan didn't, well, maybe he did make the decision. I don't know. But he just kept doing stupid things, and they did stupid things.

and the fan base, I mean, they can only take so much. You know, when you're paying $10 for a beer, you know, $8 for a hot dog, you know, parking costs of fortune, the stadium is crumbling around you, you're getting no bang for your buck. Why would you keep coming back to watch what was essentially an inferior product produced by an owner who had no idea what he was doing? And, you know, I don't care how good your fan base is. You got to treat the people right, and he didn't treat them right.

He kept their money for deposits. He threatened people who, you know, who were a long time season ticket holders or had his people do it. It was a terrible front office. The whole thing stunk. And thank you, Dan Snyder. A couple more for Len Shapiro. And he had a problem with women. Yeah.

So do you know anything about Josh Harris? Not a thing. Just what I read in the paper. What do you... Don't know them at all. I do know... I know Mitchell Rails used to play basketball with him.

And his brother, Stephen, when I was an editor back in the 80s at the YMCA on Rhode Island Avenue in the district, about four blocks from my office, they own the Danahir Corporation, which is... They are the Warren Buffets of Washington, D.C., basically. they buy companies, make them profitable, keep them, sell them, make a lot of money on them. So money is not going to be an issue. And they're both, and I know Stephen is a big sports fan, and I know Mitchell is too. So I think good times may be ahead. You know, I'm hoping that they can move back into the district, and I suspect those moves are being made as we speak.

What kind of challenge do they have in rebuilding this fan base? And how confident are you that it'll be rebuilt? Well, I'm pretty confident if they start winning, people will come back and watch. And I just hope that they're smart enough to make themselves, put themselves out front, don't hide. You know, Snyder never did press conferences. He never showed up. Draft Day, nothing. Never talked.

You know, you can barely get them on the phone. In fact, you could never get them on the phone. I hope they're accessible. I hope they're transparent. I hope they give Ron Rivera a decent shot, although Rivera better not start 0 and 5 because I suspect, you know, that's not going to cut it with these guys. They've got to get off to a pretty good start, and I think that will help.

You've been here forever. How much of losing the name and in combination with sort of the clumsy, you know, out of this new brand and new name, how much of that is a factor in getting everybody back on board? Well, number one, they're not going to rename it with the Redskins. The league won't let them do it, and they shouldn't do it. I have no problem with changing that name, knowing what I knew and doing some of the reporting I did. And by the way, Jack N. Cook was considering it, too, before he died, because there was a huge protest. in 92 at the Minnesota Super Bowl,

the last one held in Minnesota with a lot of Native Americans. And Cook, I was told, was going to do it until the end when he got sick and he couldn't do it. So Redskins, I think, that's gone with the win. Okay, it's derogatory. The first three letters in the dictionary, DER period, good riddance. Commanders needs to go, and they've got to do something else. So you think commanders needs to go? Oh, sure.

I call them McCommies. I mean, come on. So, Len, back to the... Other people call them Amanda. Back to the... I've never heard anything about Cook wanting to change the name. So you're saying that that Minneapolis Super Bowl in January of 92, and I was at that Super Bowl. Not then.

Oh, that affected them. Okay. And then there was... And then the movement started to grow to change the name. Right. And so, you know, three or four years later, Jack Kinkuk was seriously contemplating, changing the name of the team, because, number one, he saw tremendous, you know, look at the merchandise they could sell. And, yeah, he was considering it, despite what he said. All right.

Great stuff. I should ask you. Who do you like in the British this week? Give me a Rory, Mark McElroy, my favorite player out there. And he just won. He just won by birdie 17 and 18. That was fun to watch. It's really good to hear your voice.

I hope you're doing well. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, and Kevin, call me any time. Len Shapiro, everybody. I enjoyed that. Wow, some good stories, especially Jack Kent Cook. I had never heard that, that Jack Kent Cook was seriously considering changing the name in those final few years of his life.

Interesting stuff from Len. Appreciate that. Back tomorrow with Tommy. But I'm telling you, these walls are funny. First you hate them, and you get used to them. Enough time passes and get so you depend on. That's institutionalized.