As the news of Jason Wright being out as Commanders president (and eventually leaving the organization) broke late in Thursday’s show, Brian Mitchell and JP Finlay didn’t really get a chance to react in-depth until Friday.
And since it was still the top story in DC sports at 10 AM Friday, it opened the show…and it’s actually kind of a mixed bag for them, because they don’t think Wright is inculpable for a lot of the botches of his tenure, but he was also the fall guy for a lot of things that weren’t fully his fault, just because of his title.
“Jason Wright is a polarizing figure, and it's kind of perplexing in a way that a lot of people blame Jason for the name,” JP said. “What I've heard specifically is that there were conversations about some of the names that were more popular, but they would have required legal maneuvering, and the choice was the path of least resistance.”
“Everybody has gotten a pass because of Dan, and for some reason, people act like Jason walked in and was able to do everything to him by himself and Dan had nothing to do with it,” B replied. “That whole naming thing was ran by that family.”
Okay, so that’s one bad memory erased from Wright’s resume, and maybe, like the Junkies did, JP and B can give him a bit of a pass based on what he walked into – but to that above point, how much of the vitriol he got was all on him?
“The way I look at it with Jason is that when he came in, the organization was at damn near rock bottom,” JP said. “He provided a level of professionalism, a level of class and grace that that had lacked, and I think he engaged with fans directly. He was very willing to be kind of like out and about, and that was something that nobody in a position of authority from Washington had really ever done over the last 20 years, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. But, whether directly his fault or not, there are some high-level misses during his tenure that, like, the buck stops here – there are other people that are probably to blame, but it was his tenure, so he’s got to take it. I think the fervor surrounding Wright is largely about the name, and I think the decision to pick that name was largely out of his hands.”
But in the end, well, JP says if you didn’t see this coming eventually, ‘you must live under a rock.’
“New ownership came in and spent $6 billion, and Josh Harris and David Blitzer have professional sports teams in other leagues, so they’re going to have people they want to run their professional sports teams,” JP said. “Magic Johnson has interests all over the country, Mitch Rales owns one of the most successful companies in the world – they’re gonna want their own people in there. I think that's fairly simple to see, and last month, when there were national reports of Jason being a contender for the Packers job that came up – when you hear that, it’s pretty clear that something's moving here.”
“That’s business, and when the Green Bay report came out, that’s when I started thinking something could happen, but I agree with that,” Brian said. “The ultimate thing though is that to give everybody a pass and blame Jason for everything, even though Snyder was above him as well, is asinine. I truly believe that.”
So yes, blaming Wright for everything is ‘stupid,’ the guys agree, but there’s enough there (hello, rebrand!) to put on his shoulders that he could’ve done better, but:
“I think he gets more of a raw deal than anyone else who worked under Dan Snyder,” said BMitch.
Listen to the whole conversation above!