The NFL wants you to forget about horrific culture of the Washington Football Team
On Thursday afternoon it was announced that the NFL is fining the Washington Football Team a record 10 million dollars after an investigation into the team’s culture. It was also noted that there will be no suspensions or loss of draft picks. The NFL wants you to believe this is severe punishment and has allowed the Washington Football Team to control the narrative and sweep this under the rug. The Unfiltered Sports Network refuses to let that happen.
Is 10 Million enough?
10 Million Dollars sounds like an exorbitant amount of money to the average American but is it exorbitant to WFT Owner Dan Snyder? As USN Vice President Justin Polasek tweeted today, the answer is no.
This leads to the question, is $245.71 enough of a fine for what they have been accused of?
*$245.71 is based on the median net worth of the middle class ($86,000) per the balance.com
A Timeline of Abuse for the Washington Football Team
The following information is a collection of allegations that have been reported by The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC, Deadspin, and more. These are allegations that we’re included in the investigation and will mostly be listed chronologically by date of occurrence.
- 2004: Dan Snyder allegedly asked cheerleader Tiffany Bacon Scourby to join a close friend of his in a hotel room to “get to know each other better
- 2008: A video producer alleges that he was asked to make a video of outtakes from the cheerleader’s yearly photoshoots. This included topless shots of cheerleaders changing as well as crotch shots as well.
- 2010: at least one more outtake video was made from the yearly shoot in costa Rica. This was turned over to the Washington Post as part of its 2020 report.
- 2012: Cheerleaders were taken to a mandatory boat party on a sponsors boat where liquor was shot into women’s mouths, and cheerleaders were encouraged to enter twerking contests for money. Many felt too scared to say no.
- 2013: Cheerleaders held their annual photoshoot in Costa Rica. Their passports were confiscated, male sponsors were allowed behind the scenes in areas where the cheerleaders were changing. Nine cheerleaders were told to go out with sponsors after. Some were quoted as saying ” we felt like we were being pimped out”.
These are just the allegations regarding the cheerleaders, there also dozens of allegations of hostile work environment, bullying, retaliation, and sexual harassment from interns and office staff. On the field, this hostile work environment materialized itself with the mishandling of the Trent Williams situation.
The Report
Before I go any further, I’d like to give you the chance to go read the full investigation report by Beth Wilkinson that was released Thursday. You can find it here.
If you clicked the link, just know you saw the actual report. Because there was no written report. Only an oral report was given directly to the league. Nothing to the public. For contrast…take a look at the 243 wells report on deflategate or. The report on Ezekiel Elliott or Spygate or Bountygate… All of those received actual reports but not this one.
Why is that? We deserve to know. If we don’t know already. The difference, in this case, is that the party being investigated is a team owner. Not convinced? Here’s a quote from the NFL’s lead investigator Lisa Friel who said ” The NFL won’t confirm any specific allegation against the Dan Snyder of the Washington Football Team”
Controlling the Narrative
From the beginning, the NFL has sat back and allowed the Washington Football Team to control the narrative. At the very beginning, the team was allowed to hire its own investigator and investigate itself before eventually turning over control of the investigation to the League while also making announcements regarding the team name during the same week as the original Washington Post report to control what the sports media was talking about.
The investigation itself remained unchanged as it entered the league’s control as it was reported that the investigation had nothing to do with confirming allegations, but was only trying to get a general sense of the culture and gauge its improvement.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!! So the NFL never had any intention of providing any sense of justice for the alleged victims of this horrible conduct.
Ok… so they only wanted to gauge the improvement of the culture on the team. That means they probably quickly wrapped up the investigation to get the solutions out publicly so we can ensure accountability immediately??? Right?!?
Well no… they waited 18 months to let Washington make changes to soften the optics and then release it after the changes had already been made. Then they give the team notice to strategically name Tanya Snyder as Co-CEO because you know… they stand for women’s rights now…only to release it on the 4th of July weekend when people are too busy planning vacations to read into it beyond the headline.
The NFL has proven it doesn’t give a damn about the more than 40 women affected by this horrible scandal. Not when it can protect one of it’s own.
I pray those women take their case to a court that will respect them.
Originally Published: July 2nd, 2021
For our original coverage of the situation click here