Sources: Commanders Boss Snyder Claims ‘Dirt’ On NFL Owners & Goodell

DAN SNYDER DOES this thing when he feels cornered, say those who know him well. He paces in a hotel suite, or on his superyacht, or at River View, his $48 million Virginia estate. Cradling a drink in one hand,

he tells members of his inner circle about the dirt he has accumulated on fellow owners, coaches, executives, even his own employees — all the stuff he’s learned from other sources, including private investigative firms.

He never says exactly what he knows, only that in his 23 years as owner of the Washington Commanders, he knows a lot.

And that in the zero-sum world of billionaires, this is how you survive. Snyder recently told a close associate that he has gathered enough secrets to “blow up” several NFL owners, the league office and even commissioner Roger Goodell.

“They can’t f— with me,” he has said privately

Senior team executives and confidants have heard him say it since he was considered merely one of the worst owners in sports. Now that he’s facing investigations on multiple fronts and running out of high-powered allies, he alludes more than ever to the dirty work. Snyder, now 57 years old, has told associates he will not lose his beloved franchise without a fight that would end with multiple casualties.

“The NFL is a mafia,” he recently told an associate. “All the owners hate each other.”

“That’s not true,” one veteran owner says. “All the owners hate Dan.”

Something has to give, possibly as soon as the NFL league meetings in New York on Tuesday. Many owners and top league executives tell ESPN they would like to see Snyder removed as owner. It would clean the slate for a storied team and a cherished fan base and reignite the pursuit for a desperately needed stadium.

But there would be a price. Backed into a corner

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.”

This story was reported and written by ESPN’s Don VanNataJr. Seth Wickersham and Tisha Thompson

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