ESPN’s Clinton Yates is a Washington D.C. native, as you may know, and of course had a similar reaction to many when he heard the news that Daniel Snyder is selling the Washington Commanders…albeit with an interesting allegory.
“I think about it in the context of something that’s a little more relatable to real life: you know that dude you knew in high school who married the uber-annoying person you could not deal with, and he ends up obnoxious as well and you end up totally distancing yourself…and then he shows up at the family reunion and he’s divorced and has the kids?” Yates said. “You’re like bro, I’m already disinterested, you’ve wasted your own time with all of this and ruined the lives of a bunch of other people. That’s how I kind of feel about this.”
Yates said that Sean Taylor’s death and the fallout from that is one of the things that drove him away, and while he understands this is a step that had to happen, it may be more important for those whose lives have been affected by Snyder than the fans themselves.
“These 25 years have been long, and there are many people like myself who are not only completely disassociated with the franchise, but the NFL itself, because that team was the only reason they cared to begin with,” Yates said. “The number of diehards still hanging on has declined to the point you have to pay attention. But rejoice, it’s good for the city and the league that he’s gone, but more importantly, it’s good for all the people whose lives have been upended by Daniel M. Snyder. The bad guy is gone!”
There’s a lot to unpack about the change in ownership, and how it will affect the organization on the field, off the field, and in the community – but one of the biggest things that may come out of this is that the path to a new stadium may be much easier.
For Yates, though, the idea of coming back to DC, RFK-area land or not, just doesn’t seem feasible.
“I think this is the biggest hurdle the franchise has to figure out: a different District of Columbia then they were dealing with when they left for Maryland,” Yates said. “The D.C. of 2023 does not want a football team for 8-10 weeks a season just to say they have it. I don’t believe that’s what most of the populace is looking for; it would be great, but RFK is Federally-owned land, and all that area could probably be used for something better. Let’s be real about the urbanism that’s developed and what’s happened regionally – I think Virginia is probably the better choice. It would be a very odd move to move a very bad franchise back to the city just because you wanted to. Even if the emotional heartstrings are there to be tugged, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of economic sense to me."
Being brutally honest, Yates said he's not sure the DMV beltway is a good place for a football franchise at all - with Craig noting how the 49ers' stadium is nowhere near San Francisco proper - and that wherever they end up, that decision is going to be a key determination to who the Commanders fans of the future are.
"If you're looking at available options, none of them are great," Yates said. "If you're going to create something, I don't know if what you're going to create around RFK is centralized around an NFL team. It's not about one site being better than the other - not everyone cares about football, and it only happens a few days a year. I don't think the city is going to acquiesce to what works. It's a very difficult process, and the smartest move the next owner can make is figuring out where they're going to play, because that will determine how they win their fan base back."
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