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The Bombshell

Snyder is now getting pummeled for his statement because he apologized to current employees for the culture but didn’t apologize to the victims.

Another legal maneuver to appear to be saying something but in the end it’s not of much value.
 
Snyder is now getting pummeled for his statement because he apologized to current employees for the culture but didn’t apologize to the victims.

Another legal maneuver to appear to be saying something but in the end it’s not of much value.
I was waiting for Cuban to chime in. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29486319/accept-your-mistakes
Mark Cuban said:
If you know Dan Snyder, if you're involved with the Redskins, if you connect to them, tell Dan and tell his senior management you've got to just recognize what you did right and what you did wrong. You have to accept the mistakes you made. That's painful. I made a lot of mistakes. And that's the only way this is going to get resolved.
 
OK Elephant, I feel like you're addressing me pretty directly with your cheerleader pics, so allow me to address you directly.

First though, to any ladies of this site, I apologize, sincerely. I do not remember specifics, but I am sure I said inappropriate, chauvinistic comments about the cheerleader pictures posted in chat, and I sincerely regret those choices. If you would like to read on please do, but know first and foremost I regret my words.

Now, to Elephant. A friend of mine once told me that many men objectify women until they become a father to a daughter. I'm so stupid, that didn't even work for me until my kids got older. When I was a younger man, I said degrading things about women that I am now ashamed of. But when my girls became teenagers (because I am dumb it took that long) I began to have the slightest inkling of the hurdles they face and the struggles they endure on a daily basis that are just not part of my life at all, and I changed.

Should I have been more aware of the struggles my wife faces? Yeah, definitely.

Again, I'm very stupid.

I have apologized to the women in my life multiple times and have worked hard to lift them up and encourage them in tangible ways whenever I possibly can.

I think that's called growth. And I'm damned proud to say that I am not the same person I was however many years ago it was that I was in those chats. It's not a part of my life that I am proud of but it exists, I've learned from it and I've made changes.

And one of the changes I've made is the realization that it isn't all about me. My needs/wants/desires aren't more important than theirs. If anything, given the systemic misogyny that they face, their needs are more important than mine - I owe it to my kids to leave the world a better place for them.

To that end, when I read stories like this shit coming out of Redskins Park I am enraged. I've defended the name for years to people and defended being a fan of a shitty team for what feels like forever to people. And I'm just fucking tired of it all. As others have (better) expressed than I have, this is just one more straw on the mountain of shit that Snyder has forced on us.

Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to give you my perspective. And I apologize for not doing so more quickly last night. My wife got a promotion this week and we enjoyed a very nice bottle (or two) of beer and called it night fairly early.
 
I guess that being more active on youtube, twitter and facebook means I was exposed to more of the craziness than most.
For 3 days the buildup was .....
" MASSIVE BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE REDSKINS, LEAGUE CHANGING ACCUSATIONS"
"BIGGEST SEX SCANDAL IN NFL HISTORY,SNYDER WILL BE FORCED OUT"
"LEAKED INFORMATION, DRUG AND ALCHOHOL FUELED SEX ORGIES, "
"THE END OF THE REDSKINS,ACCUSATIONS WILL DESTROY THE FRANCHISE"
"IS THIS THE MOST TOXIC TEAM IN HISTORY?"
"AT LEAST THE 90'S COWBOYS WERE GOOD ON THE FIELD"
"WILL THE LATEST REDSKINS SCANDAL END THE TEAM?"

then we were told that these were the "details"

" my boss called me fucking stupid"
" I was told to wear high heels and a form fitting dress"
"a man at the office asked women if they were romantically interested in him"

not teamates slashing another teammates throat, no hiring prostitutes to be cheerleaders, no forcing cheerleaders to sleep with management and friends, no drug and booze filled sex parties on yachts, no ground shattering accusations, and aside from mentioning 15 complaints, not really anything nearly as outrageous as the rumours.

so yeah I feel like this was way overblown do anyone of you honestly believe the hype was warranted here? really? this was text book manufactured outrage, release some rumours, create a shitstorm, then rely on people maintaining that level of outrage despite the details.

honestly the most significant thing to me were not the cheerleading stories, although those are pretty gross, but that 15 women complained about sexual harassment, but since there were no details of those accusations, only "complaints" I kind of want to know if they were " my boss was mean to me" or " someone at the office asked me out" or if they were " my job was openly threatened if I didnt have sex with someone" or unwanted touching etc. either way its inappropriate behaviour, but one is far worse than the other. either one will get someone fired though.

Snyder will have to sell the team, and I am ok with that, hopefully whoever buys it is less of an asshat.
 
To Goaldeje's point...

I have seen some commentary from some women on social media (and even here) that basically pointed out that men 'don't need to reference their wives and daughters' when making anti-harassment statements. I guess the point of that is, it shouldn't take it being someone YOU care about to make this an important issue. I agree with that, but I also think it misses the point. It's true that men can never fully understand what it's like to be a woman. But I think the opposite is also the case. Men are and have been reared in a certain culture, and while that's not any kind of rationalization for bad behavior, it helps give context to the discussion in some ways.

I have always had a sophomoric and borderline inappropriate sense of humor. I am legendary (and perhaps not always in a good way) with my nieces and nephews for my 'baudy' sense of humor. But when my daughter was in her early 20's, I had a 'woke' moment. We were out at a restaurant (my wife, daughter, and I) and I made a few, what I considered harmlessly 'flirty' comments to our young waitress. It was the sort of thing I'd probably done 100 times in my life, but my daughter became very upset. My wife, who knows both the good, bad, and ugly of 'ME' had probably weathered my eye-rolling attempts at humor so many times, it didn't even show up on her radar. But my daughter called me out on it - and I mean really called me out on it. I have never considered myself anything but respectful of women - so I'm not going to lie - this shook me up. I've thought a lot about it - and still do. It was a cold, hard, slap to the face that I needed, and had coming.

No - it shouldn't have taken that kind of eye-opener from someone I love to clue me in. But it did. I might've responded much like a number of you here are right now, had we been talking about this 15 years ago. But I have learned that even simple words we might utter to females that we might consider good-natured ribbing, flattery, or just overt friendliness, might have an entirely different context to a young woman (or any woman for that matter). They might laugh or shrug it off, participate in it, or ignore it. But beneath that there could well be a lot of pain and feelings of diminishment and hurt. It breaks my heart that I took so long to figure that out - and that someone out there may have been creeped out by my own words and actions.

This is not the only problem in society. Men aren't the only ones who have some evolving to do. And I will not pretend I'm not a sexual being with thoughts and impulses and attractions like everyone else on Planet Earth. But I do think we have been raised and indoctrinated in a certain male-dominated culture that excuses an awful lot of bad behavior. And we all need to do better.
 
I guess that being more active on youtube, twitter and facebook means I was exposed to more of the craziness than most.
For 3 days the buildup was .....
" MASSIVE BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE REDSKINS, LEAGUE CHANGING ACCUSATIONS"
"BIGGEST SEX SCANDAL IN NFL HISTORY,SNYDER WILL BE FORCED OUT"
"LEAKED INFORMATION, DRUG AND ALCHOHOL FUELED SEX ORGIES, "
"THE END OF THE REDSKINS,ACCUSATIONS WILL DESTROY THE FRANCHISE"
"IS THIS THE MOST TOXIC TEAM IN HISTORY?"
"AT LEAST THE 90'S COWBOYS WERE GOOD ON THE FIELD"
"WILL THE LATEST REDSKINS SCANDAL END THE TEAM?"

then we were told that these were the "details"

" my boss called me fucking stupid"
" I was told to wear high heels and a form fitting dress"
"a man at the office asked women if they were romantically interested in him"

not teamates slashing another teammates throat, no hiring prostitutes to be cheerleaders, no forcing cheerleaders to sleep with management and friends, no drug and booze filled sex parties on yachts, no ground shattering accusations, and aside from mentioning 15 complaints, not really anything nearly as outrageous as the rumours.

so yeah I feel like this was way overblown do anyone of you honestly believe the hype was warranted here? really? this was text book manufactured outrage, release some rumours, create a shitstorm, then rely on people maintaining that level of outrage despite the details.

honestly the most significant thing to me were not the cheerleading stories, although those are pretty gross, but that 15 women complained about sexual harassment, but since there were no details of those accusations, only "complaints" I kind of want to know if they were " my boss was mean to me" or " someone at the office asked me out" or if they were " my job was openly threatened if I didnt have sex with someone" or unwanted touching etc. either way its inappropriate behaviour, but one is far worse than the other. either one will get someone fired though.

Snyder will have to sell the team, and I am ok with that, hopefully whoever buys it is less of an asshat.

Were you expecting that the story would be a murder that was somehow kept quiet until now? That seems... unrealistic.

You appear to have two problems with all this: 1) the actual information did not conform with YOUR expectations of what the story was going to be. 2) the rest of us do not agree with YOUR assessment that what was revealed is not a huge deal.

YOUR expectations and YOUR assessment are not OUR problems.

Our problem is that expectations for this team are so fucking low that this kind of abhorrent behavior has been normalized to an extent and some people (you) are saying it's bad BUT... or it's not acceptable behavior and people will/should be fired BUT...

This is bad AND it is not acceptable behavior AND people should be fired AND Dan should lose the team.
 
Look, if you took his wife and son out of the equation there is probably no one that supports Snyder and his continued ownership.

There isn't anyone except perhaps Joe Gibbs that he hasn't insulted, demeaned, criticized, run over or otherwise antagonized over the years and that is in part why the rumors became so vicious in advance of the Washington Post story.

Many WANTED the charges to be sufficient enough to force this turkey to step down and leave town with his tail between his legs.

The descent has been pretty thorough from when he bought the team:

The team's performance over the past 20 years is among the worst 5 or 6 in the NFL

A number of coaches were brought in as saviors, great people, wonderful football men only to be dismissed later on by Snyder as if they were bums or incompetent or horrible people.

Attendance at the games has fallen so low now that thousands of seats that had been built out have been covered and removed from the subscription list.

Of those seats that remain available 40-50% are empty even with other teams' fans coming from out of town to see them.

Minority partners ALL want to sell their shares and Danny doesn't have the liquidity to buy them out.

My estimate is we haven't hit rock bottom yet but it appears inevitable with Snyder's personality and his inability to stay the course on anything positive means we will be back here soon enough with more organizational trauma.

And because he is now wounded and in a vulnerable position it makes him that much less likely to survive any more body shots.
 
No - it shouldn't have taken that kind of eye-opener from someone I love to clue me in. But it did. I might've responded much like a number of you here are right now, had we been talking about this 15 years ago. But I have learned that even simple words we might utter to females that we might consider good-natured ribbing, flattery, or just overt friendliness, might have an entirely different context to a young woman (or any woman for that matter). They might laugh or shrug it off, participate in it, or ignore it. But beneath that there could well be a lot of pain and feelings of diminishment and hurt. It breaks my heart that I took so long to figure that out - and that someone out there may have been creeped out by my own words and actions.

That's a good point. In that vein I would have thought that what Katie, a respected friend, fellow fan, and colleague of ours, posted would have had some sort of effect on the empathy of those of us who don't have her perspective. I thought it was pretty powerful.

Here it is again in case anyone missed it:

I read the article and cried. It is so awful. It brings up so many painful emotions for me, it feels visceral and I want to puke. I can’t even form, like coherent thoughts. Except to say I’m done. Not only with the Skins, but the NFL. I’m so sick of this fucked up patriarchal society from professional sports to our presidency. I’m just done. The NFL is not a safe place for females.

That sounds like a fairly biblical-level reaction to me, and who I am to tell her she's wrong? I'd rather listen and learn something, than watch her walk away with a shrug and a 'well it's not THAT bad" ...
 
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I just made this point on Twitter. In any modern corporate environment in this same scenario, the CEO would almost certainly already be gone, hostile work environment complaints/lawsuits would have been filed


I recall not too long ago McDonald's fired their successful CEO because of an affair he was having which by all accounts was consensual, but is still an abuse of power and is against policy based on the fact that you can't disregard the power that comes from the head of the company, even if you say it was never directly discussed. So yeah ... he'd be gone.

Also - I get that this shouldn't be tolerated regardless of whether or not you have a daughter or wife ... but our society has deemed the good guy role of men to be protectors. To that end, I believe that Rivera truly believes (his favorite phrase - should be the truly believe drinking game ... ) that this is wrong and his statement about his daughter is meant to over emphasize his added incentive to ensure it isn't just lip service. To show that he is personally vested in this because of someone near and dear to him - beyond the well intended "right thing to do" frame of mind.
 
I disagree on this issue.

Personally when I see a guy out there talking about supporting the troops, the fact he has a son that is a LT in the USMC only adds authenticity to the statement.

We know he is not merely mouthing words to mollify an audience.

Likewise Rivera is laying down that he has thought about these issues before in raising a daughter and so he is in essence communicating his commitment.

Look, there are people that are going to criticize ANY statement that is not just universal and based on philosophy of ‘humaneness’ as opposed to experience, but most of us learn from experience not intangibles.

For those that are able to travel through life with preset philosophies on every subject as absolutes must feel like Moses with those tablets 😎
 
Were you expecting that the story would be a murder that was somehow kept quiet until now? That seems... unrealistic.

You appear to have two problems with all this: 1) the actual information did not conform with YOUR expectations of what the story was going to be. 2) the rest of us do not agree with YOUR assessment that what was revealed is not a huge deal.

YOUR expectations and YOUR assessment are not OUR problems.

Our problem is that expectations for this team are so fucking low that this kind of abhorrent behavior has been normalized to an extent and some people (you) are saying it's bad BUT... or it's not acceptable behavior and people will/should be fired BUT...

This is bad AND it is not acceptable behavior AND people should be fired AND Dan should lose the team.
I was expecting more than " he called me stupid" and " he asked me if I was romantically interested in him" yes.
my problem is simple 1- the expectations were set pretty high with the hyperbole leading up to these announcements. 2- some of you seem to be more than willing to pretend as if these announcements met the expectations.


I honestly couldn't care less if you want to jump on the outrage bandwagon, but dont pretend like it makes you virtuous.

I am well aware of how bad this team is and I have been pretty vocal in calling out the culture.

There was no but, there was, THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WERE TOLD IT WOULD BE. I actually thought it would be some massive scandal that would force Danny to sell the team, this is not that, this is barely enough for story, notice how quickly the outrage died? for 3 days leading up, you would have thought it was the end of the world, by sunday nobody will even be talking about it.

IS IT ENOUGH TO LOSE DAN THE TEAM? NOPE, not even with some of you pretending it is and if you think whining on an internet forum will make danny grow a conscience, I would suggest you havent been around the past 20 years.
 
That's a good point. In that vein I would have thought that what Katie, a respected friend, fellow fan, and colleague of ours, posted would have had some sort of effect on the empathy of those of us who don't have her perspective. I thought it was pretty powerful.

Here it is again in case anyone missed it:



That sounds like a fairly biblical-level reaction to me, and who I am to tell her she's wrong? I'd rather listen and learn something, than watch her walk away with a shrug and a 'well it's not THAT bad" ...
in regards to your comment from Kate, sounds an awful lot like the logic behind changing the name, if even ONE person felt that it made them feel bad, then why keep it? but be prepared to follow that logic to its conclusion.

in regards to how we speak around women, I tend to treat them as if they are my equal, I don't coddle them or speak down to them. I acknowledge that women tend to be more sensitive and feelingsy than men, and that they often have a different outlook on things, that doesn't mean I wont speak my mind or defend their right to speak theirs.

and sorry Henry, but when you use the title biblical in regards to a stories impact, it damn well better at least be something major. in the grand scheme of things, this wasn't. It was serious and should be dealt with harshly, but doubling down and claiming that because a friend was upset, the hyperbole was justified? nah.
 
anyway its obvious you havent made an argument that will change my mind and I havent made one that will change yours, in a few days this will all have blown over anyway, hopefully the team will make actual changes but I doubt it will be more than just lip service. doesnt really matter because if they change the name to something that doesn't have anything to do with Natives, I am probably gonna stop watching football anyway.
 
in regards to your comment from Kate, sounds an awful lot like the logic behind changing the name, if even ONE person felt that it made them feel bad, then why keep it? but be prepared to follow that logic to its conclusion.

You would have an interesting point there if the one person who was offended was, say, me. The person I was quoting, however, had a unique perspective on this particular subject here, which I would think might carry a little more weight in this particular case when discussing just HOW offensive it might be.

I could just as easily say your argument sounds an awful lot like the logic behind changing the name as well, since according to most around here, it was people not directly impacted by the name, non-natives, who decided what was offensive and what wasn't.

in regards to how we speak around women, I tend to treat them as if they are my equal, I don't coddle them or speak down to them. I acknowledge that women tend to be more sensitive and feelingsy than men, and that they often have a different outlook on things, that doesn't mean I wont speak my mind or defend their right to speak theirs.

It's not about equality or coddling or whatever qualities you've decided to attribute to women. It's about respecting a different and more relevant perspective than yours in this situation. I find it particularly ironic that you've written at least a half dozen posts in this thread explaining that we non-football players just don't understand how it is and this is the way men and women are in your world so you know things we don't as justifications for your repeated lectures about how were a bunch of virtue-signaling fakers ... yet you are so quick to dismiss what the one woman who posted in this thread had to say. It's a small sample size, but between your unique perspective as a player and hers as a woman, I'll pick hers as more relevant to what big a deal this is to women.

and sorry Henry, but when you use the title biblical in regards to a stories impact, it damn well better at least be something major. in the grand scheme of things, this wasn't. It was serious and should be dealt with harshly, but doubling down and claiming that because a friend was upset, the hyperbole was justified? nah.

I make no absolute pronouncements on how big this story is. That's for each of us to decide for ourselves. You've made your opinion abundantly clear. So has Katie. Both of your opinions have been noted.

anyway its obvious you havent made an argument that will change my mind and I havent made one that will change yours, in a few days this will all have blown over anyway, hopefully the team will make actual changes but I doubt it will be more than just lip service. doesnt really matter because if they change the name to something that doesn't have anything to do with Natives, I am probably gonna stop watching football anyway.

Well, here we agree. I don't think this is will change anything with the team or the league. Not because of how big a deal I think this is or not, but just because I no faith in either the NFL or the Washington non-Redskins to give a damn either way. This will be swept under the rug like everything else. It's what the league does.

We'll see if more comes of this. I won't hold my breath.
 
You would have an interesting point there if the one person who was offended was, say, me. The person I was quoting, however, had a unique perspective on this particular subject here, which I would think might carry a little more weight in this particular case when discussing just HOW offensive it might be.

Unique perspective how? Are you saying men cannot be harassed sexually?

Years ago I was working for a company I hated, the level of harassment by the gay men at that company was out of control. They felt they could try to make straight men feel uncomfortable by loudly sharing their sexual exploits for all to hear.

There was one in particular about 6'5" 265 pounds who was a straight up bully. At this point in my life, I'd been around the block so it didn't bother me much, until that particular man came up behind me and whispered, "I would hope you'd fight me, I would stick it in you good."

Now, I am not one to take shit like that sitting down, so I turned around and told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever spoke to me that way again, I would break his fucking teeth.

Then I spoke to an attorney, who told me that it is nearly impossible for a man to win a case like that even though I had 2 months of documentation, and the law was actually on my side.

Sexual harassment is not a problem only women have to deal with. I have the perspective of being sexually harassed and was told by a lawyer I could do nothing about it, even though it was textbook.

And you know what...it was NOT biblical!

You guys hear that? That signal? It's getting louder and louder...can you hear it? It's a virtue signal! Boy is it getting loud in here.
 
Good LORD this conversation went a long way. If I could try to simplify things a little bit.

1. Ryman is reacting to the 'biblical' news falling short of that. There was one person who tweeted that the story coming out of Ashburn was going to be 'biblical.' I cant remember who. The thing about this story is that it got hyped SOO much by media members that did not have the story, that speculation and guessing ran wild. People were coming up with all sorts of ideas. At one point someone linked Snyder to Epstein, which to this point I have not seen evidence of.

2. This story is gross and details a culture that obviously needs to be addressed. Unfortunately it's a culture that is common place in far too many companies and corporations. That does not justify it by any means, and in fact it's more saddening that there is a large group of people who participate in this type of behavior.

3. I'm falling short on the cheerleader picture argument a little bit. I am a blue blooded man. I am attracted to women and I'm good with that. Cheerleaders are attractive women that are on the sidelines to appeal to a certain type of person... That being said, I have never touched, yelled at, hit on, or done anything beyond appreciating an attractive woman. When El shares those photos, I look at them and I'm ok with it. Those cheerleaders are not dressing or dancing that way by force. They are in that position (on the sidelines cheering) by choice. I do not agree with them being 'forced,' or pimped out to suite holders... or basically held captive in Costa Rica. That is clearly unacceptable behavior, but I don't think anyone should feel guilty about appreciating a cheerleader on the sideline. Boone, I get that it's not your thing and I can appreciate that. You're not wrong for feeling that way, but I don't think I should feel wrong for feeling the way I do either.

4. Snyder needs to answer to the fact that Santos, Mann, and Michaels did not have to face any music until this story came to light. I can't believe that Snyder JUST found out about this behavior when Wapo was vetting the story... and if he did, it's an even bigger issue of negligence in the owner of a multi-billion $$ company wanting to be so involved with football ops, but not even knowing what's going on in his building.
 
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El, that's a hell of a story. Thank you for sharing it, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. Two quick responses:

First, despite what happened to you, I don't think that experience gives you the same life experience as a woman.

Secondly, this current story was instead that 15 MEN had come forward about being harassed by men at Redskins park, my guess is that it would be a MUCH bigger story. Probably the NFL scandal of the decade.
 
El, that's a hell of a story. Thank you for sharing it, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. Two quick responses:

First, despite what happened to you, I don't think that experience gives you the same life experience as a woman.

Secondly, this current story was instead that 15 MEN had come forward about being harassed by men at Redskins park, my guess is that it would be a MUCH bigger story. Probably the NFL scandal of the decade.


I think you're selling things short Henry, and downplaying an experience that in itself is harassment. Trying to compare life experiences is no different than what Boone was fighting before by trying to say harassment is harassment and the level in which it happens, while varying, does not make one more acceptable than another. If the goal is to open eyes to an issue, all issues need to be respected. A lot of women have been subject to inappropriate behavior, and maybe El's experience isn't as common as those others, but the experience is still the experience... The biggest difference is that the majority of the time women are either intimidated enough, or scared enough, that it is not pursued, and in El's case, he happened to be in a more appropriate position to defend himself legally, as well as physically.
 

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