You knew it was coming, but after five tumultuous seasons, the Washington Redskins finally put head coach Jay Gruden out of his misery and fired him after a 35-49-1 record.
Jay Gruden got fired after the New England Patriots crushed Washington in Week 5. The team fell to 0-5, and Washington brass tossed him under the bus. Coming into this season, bookies listed Gruden as a 3/1 favorite to lose his job first.
Unfortunately for assistant coach Bill Callahan, he got dubbed the interim head coach.
For the last five seasons, Gruden became the lightning rod for team owner Dan Snyder’s incompetence. With Gruden fired, who will the despised billionaire owner hire to become the latest punching bag in DC sports?
Supposedly, ex-Jets head coach Todd Bowles is on the shortlist of candidates. Only someone who handed the #LOLJets circus for four years is qualified to shovel out Snyder’s avalanche of ineptitude that buried the Washington Redskins training facility.
In the 20 years before Daniel Snyder, Washington had 4 coaches (Pardee, Gibbs, Petitbon, Turner) go 184-143-1 with 16 playoff wins.
Since:
Turner 17-12
Robiskie 1-2
Schottenheimer 8-8
HBC 12-20
Gibbs 30-34
Zorn 12-20*
Shanahan 24-40
Gruden 35-49139-195-1 with 2 playoff wins
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) October 7, 2019
Snyder, Vampires, and the Worst Owner in Sports
Snyder makes NY Knicks owner James Dolan look like Mother Theresa. Dolan gets away with so many of his antics because he’s not in the same league as demagogue Snyder.
Bill Simmons dubbed Snyder the “worst owner in pro sports” in a scathing piece in Grantland in December 2014. Since then, Snyder had plenty of opportunities to become a better person and, thereby, a better team owner. Alas, it never happened.
Simmons summed it up best, “If America’s capital can’t figure out how to organically dispose of America’s least redeeming professional sports owner? Then this country is in worse shape than I thought.”
Since purchasing the Skins in 1999, the team went .429 with only five postseason appearances under Snyder. Like an incorrigible puppy, Snyder chewed through eight head coaches and 20 starting QBs. Snyder fired Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Jim Zorn, and Mike Shanahan. The legendary Joe Gibbs resigned along with Steve Spurrier.
According to ESPN’s Barnwell, the Skins won 16 playoff games in the 20 years before Snyder bought the team. Washington also won 56 percent of their regular season games in the last two decades of the 20th Century.
Robert Kraft can get busted in a sting for getting a happy ending at a massage parlor and all of New England still loves the Patriots. You know why? Because they win Super Bowls. When you win, you can act like a sex-crazed eccentric billionaire and everyone looks the other way.
When you lose, everyone shoots death stares in your direction. The vitriol in the DC area is palpable because the powerless fanbase knows there’s no way to stop a tyrant. Time and time again, Snyder acts like a buffoon and one of the most loyal fan bases in American sports continues to endure a nightmarish clown show in a treacherous town where rogue clown shows run amok.
According to William Hill, the Washington Redskins and tanking Miami Dolphins are the two highest teams on the board for Super Bowl 54 odds. Both teams meet in Week 6 in a battle of winless teams.
