Repost: Bet John Disagrees

In honor of yesterday's long Washington Post profile on John Kent Cooke, the man who lost the Redskins to Dan Snyder a decade ago, Curly R went into the archives for our first ever repost, the story of the sale of the Redskins, originally published here on 21 December 2006, it is below in its entirety.

Curly R's comment on the WaPo profile will be published this afternoon. Enjoy this recap of the ugliness and shady dealings surrounding the sale of the Redskins.

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Thursday, December 21, 2006


Those were the days

Jack Kent Cooke, the Squire, the owner Redskins fans wish was still alive, is back in the news in a Marc Fisher column titled 'Fulfilling Lives Will Be Cooke's Enduring Legacy.' If you will recall, JKC died in 1997. He gave 50 million dollars in a trust to his son John Kent Cooke, some other nicks and nacks to people, but the bulk of his billion dollar fortune was bequeathed to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, an organization dedicated to bettering high academic achievers from lower income brackets in poverty-stricken areas such as Fairfax and Montgomery Counties. According to the foundation's website, up to 650 students a year are selected, with up to 50,000 dollars in scholarships and assistance granted per student, though the Marc Fisher piece pegs the number at about 15,000 dollars each.

Recall if you will the final days and aftermath of JKC's life. John Kent Cooke, JKC's only surviving son, toiled in relative anonymity as the president of the team, the operations guy. Bobby Beathard, then later Charley Casserly handled GM duties, and Joe Gibbs had a direct line with JKC, so John spent most of his time tending to the business of the franchise, making sure stuff got done. When JKC died, John announced his intent to keep the Redskins in the family.

But there was a problem. JKC was the owner of the team and spanking new stadium, and as such, they were his assets and they went into his estate, which was willed to the new foundation. The trustees of the estate had orders to sell the team to the highest bidder. With the new stadium doubling team revenue and boosting the team's profitability by a factor of ten, the Redskins were hot hot hot, and there was speculation the team could sell for twice the 450 million dollars that bought the new Cleveland Browns. JKC had only (only!) given son John 50 million dollars, not enough to buy the team.

The bidding started at 450 million, and eventually John put together a 680 million dollar offer. That was rejected by JKC's trustees, with whom John's relationship went south fast. The trustees, of which John was technically one, demanded final say on all decisions related to the team, everything from groundskeeping to office supplies to contract negotiations. John and Charley complained to the league that these non-football people did not have the health of the product in mind and could lead the team down a road that would take decades to recover from, so NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped in and decreed John remain president of the team, retaining Charley and Norv Turner. It is in this tumultuous period that the Redskins lost Trent Green, to St. Louis.

It must have been hard for John not to think the father was punishing him from the grave, but JKC earned his money from scratch and I always thought this was meant by JKC to be John's test.

John upped his offer to 700 million dollars, but that was still not enough for the trustees. They were in love with developer Howard Milstein who, with his brother Edward and 'Bethesda businessman' Dan Snyder, put together an 800 million dollar offer which the trustees accepted.

Here is where this story gets hard to follow.

The league either actively wanted John Kent Cooke to have the team, or actively did not want Howard Milstein to have it. The JKC trustees approved Howard's offer, but the NFL Finance Committee, the body in charge of granting approval to team sales, waffled, then rejected it, nominally over concerns about how solid was the financing. The league then even took the public-pressure step of asking to 're-examine' John's bid, even as the JKC trustees were shaking hands and signing papers with Howard.

Howard eventually withdrew his offer in rage and disgust, and to add injury to insult, the league did not return his 30 million dollar application fee-deposit on the team, and this refusal was upheld in court (adding to the intrigue, Dan Snyder's portion of the deposit, 10 million, was refunded to Dan after the league accepted his bid).

Despite denials and no findings by the league (surprise the league found nothing in its investigation of itself), it was obvious to me at the time that Charley Casserly and John Kent Cooke ran interference with the league and persuaded the Finance Committee to reject the offer, with the idea being that John would be the last man standing, and the league would pocket 30 million from Howard. Was Howard blackballed by the fraternity of NFL owners, or was his bid really too debt-heavy, as was the official reaction from the NFL? Great NYT article on the aftermath of Howard's failed bid.

Then in swept Dan Snyder with his own 800 million dollar offer, essentially identical to Howard's only without Howard. It was strange because Dan had been quiet, like a little mouse as Howard's bid went down in flames. The trustees approved Dan's offer, and the NFL Finance Committee approved it. What did the fans get? After Giants owner Wellington Mara died last year, the NYT quoted Michael MacCambridge, author of NFL history tome America's Game:

It was clear to me that Mr. Mara viewed Daniel Snyder in roughly the same way that Frank Sinatra might have viewed Eminem

(You may remember Dan had TVs installed over the urinals in the owner's box at Redskins Stadium so he would not have to miss a play while recycling his juice box.)

John subsequently withdrew his offer and lived out a few years in Middleburg before slinking off to Bermuda with his 50 million, but not before buying a newpaper chain. He and Richie Petitbon now hang out at the Bitter Bitter Man's Club.

Always the pioneer, JKC will now forever be remembered for brigning Super Bowls to Washington, and now as the rich guy that wanted to give back to the community, and in the end, had the courage to help middle class white people.*

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Everything you wanted to know about Jack Kent Cooke: Special Washington Post section (why doesn't this stuff appear in the Washington Post or Google searches? I came across this in an image search and followed it back). Another Washington Post special section on JKC. Wikipedia. JKC's will. Feel like reliving the tragicomedy of the NFL and John Kent Cooke sabotaging Howard Milstein's attempt to buy the team while minority partner Dan Snyder was oddly silent? Washington Post section of key stories on the sale of the team. Unfortunately, many of these links are long broken. Another special online section, looking like it has not been updated since about 1997.



* This link s the google image search for Jack Kent Cooke. Follow it and tell me what you see. Since he's been dead for almost ten years, there are fewer pictures of the man and more related to the JKC Foundation. The recipient students pictured in the first 5 pages of this search are overwhelminly white.

Interestingly, in the course of researching this piece, I came across an NYT piece on former NYC top cop and failed DHS Secretary nominee Bernie Kerik that ties into this story. After September 11, 2001, Anthony Bergamo, a vice chairman in Howard Milstein's real estate empire, at Bernie's request, donated an apartment overlooking the rubble as a place for weary police and firefighters to rest. Many involved in the recovery and cleanup simply refused to go home between shifts, and it was a gesture meant to show solidarity in the city. After the initial 24-hour cycle of effort slowed to a predictable pace, Bernie asked if he could rent it for himself, which brings into question in my mind his real motivation for securing the residence in the first place. I am sure when Howard's company agreed to rent it to Bernie, they were not thinking Bernie might use it as a loveshack where he could take his recently fired OJ=dollar signs anti-semite floozy Judith Regan and bang her out of sight of his wife and children, which is in fact what he did with it. What is the tie-in to this story? After the whole Redskins thing collapsed and Howard realized he not only was not getting the team but was not getting his 20 million dollars back, he sued John Kent Cooke, then already in Bermuda, for 100 million dollars. In an effort to get some incriminating evidence on John or Charley Casserly, Howard spent 6500 dollars sending Anthony Bergamo to Bermuda under an assumed name where he wore a wire and arranged to bump into John and Charley and try and get them to talk. Ultimately, Anthony got nothing and the lawsuit was tossed.

Jack Kent Cooke and Marlene Ramallo Cooke, April 9, 1992: AP photo
Joe Theismann, Jack Kent Cooke, John Riggins and Joe Gibbs after winning Super Bowl 17 and John Kent Cooke: Washington Post

This Has Disaster Written All Over It

While you're at it how bout a coffee

We are well into the ostensible and the nominal as in offensive consultant Sherman Lewis was ostensibly brought in as another set of eyes and Jim Zorn is still nominally the head coach of the Redskins.

We are also into the humiliation phase of the game, not only has coach Zorn been stripped of playcalling duties, not only have they been given to the guy that has been here less than three weeks and is still getting up to speed, John Keim at the Washington Examiner reports that Sherman Lewis will sit in the booth and relay playcalls down to coach Zorn, who will send them into the quarterback.

Check that again, the bingo caller that has been out of football since Brian Orapko was in high school not only got Jim Zorn's favorite part of the job, Jim Zorn has to carry that guy's call into the game.

This has, for management, the convenient dual effect of humiliating Jim Zorn further as he must serve up someone else's playcalls of his team's offense, and of ensuring that if coach is relaying plays into the game that he is not free to manage the game. Kind of like not only fucking another guy's wife but making him hang out with a towel for when you are done instead of letting him watch TV in the next room.

They took away his authority to call plays but left him with the responsibility to get the plays into the game.

Red stapler at this point.



Jim Zorn: AP photo from here.

What Happened to Burgundy Revolution?

Start of the Purge?

While browsing Dan Dan the Sports Bog man today I noted a reader comment, BurgundyRevolution.com, a vanguard site of the Burgundy Revolution movement, has gone invite only, it has effectively disappeared from the internets.

A little trolling and I learned Fan Exodus discovered the disappearance last night and also noted that the site's @BurgundyRevo Twitter account has been deleted.

BurgundyRevolution.com aka BR burst on the scene late last month, and was a clearinghouse for motivation and direction of the Burgundy Revolution movement. In conjunction with other fan revolt sites and Twitter feeds, BR was a principle pimp of the move for fans to wear all black to last Sunday's game.

BR is a sign of the times, Redskins fans are so fed up that sites in opposition to the current ownership regime are popping up every day, and BR's disappearance concerns me.

I have already heard scuttlebutt that the site runner, who is anonymous, is taking a break. After barely a month? And you took the site down? That sounds as fair weather as the late arriving chardonnay sipping Blackberry reading hummus eating segment of the Redskins fanbase, that would be a total cop out if it were true. You got a prime URL and the freaking Washington Post was linking out to you daily, I know first hand what that does to traffic numbers.

At worst you ride out this wave and if the team makes the right move write a farewell post and leave the blog up dormant as an artifact of the most tumultuous time in modern Redskins history. At best use your platform to transition BR to a regular journal measuring the performance of the team and join the ranks of independent Redskins outlets such as the one you are reading.

Or is it something else, something more sinister? Did the team or someone else come after the site for something it published and the runner just decided to shut it down permanently or at least until he could get things sorted out?

Redskins blogs come and go with regularity, the timing of this one though raises eyebrows and inquiring minds want to know what happened. If the runner is reading this, email me if you want to set the record straight.



Joseph Stalin from here.

The Message Is the Message

The working class is rising up

In my opinion there are few people that know more about the Washington Redskins than Rich Tandler, a season ticket holder for forty years I think Rich has literally seen it all, if you want the fan perspective from any period in your lifetime check with Rich, if you are not reading Real Redskins then bookmark it or put it in your syndication reader and get informed.

It is Rich's depth of experience that informs his perspective and also why I believe he is not frothing with esprit de corps in this season of Burgundy Revolution, for those that are he has suggested that frontal attacks on Dan Snyder are hopeless, like tossing tennis balls at Panzers or trying to drain the ocean so why bother, he is not listening anyway.

No the avenue per Rich is to appeal to a higher order, and he suggests former coach Joe Gibbs or NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, anyone higher in the football food chain or someone for whom Dan has genuine respect and to whose encouragement Dan may be susceptible.

And while I believe that to be an intriguing notion academically, such an effort would ultimately serve much less purpose than exactly what passionate and fed up Redskins fans are doing now, and that is public displays of displeasure.

Roger Goodell has no motivation to collar Dan Snyder and make him improve on field performance, there need to be untouchables as well as elites and I am certain Roger is just fine with the Redskins being down in the bottom caste.

I am sure Dan is well within the bylaws in everything he does, Dan is in good standing with the league and it would be gauche for Roger to start a casual conversation over caviar and Balvenie about how Dan put the team in the ditch and up here at the league me and the boys would really appreciate it if you got some help, here call this number in the morning.

If the NFL as a corporate entity is not going to go medieval on Mike Brown and the Bengals then why would it come after Dan Snyder and the Redskins? Shit man the league told Al Davis not to move the Raiders to Los Angeles, not a single owner voted for the move and Al said piss off and did it anyway and the league was like ok Mr. Davis I'm sorry.

As for Joe Gibbs, his heart and cleared checks totaling twenty million dollars will always be in Washington, he would tell us what he told us every week as coach, it is the team's responsibility to put a good product on the field and if they do not then the team must be held accountable.

Then he would go back to his racing team and have a good laugh behind our backs, he has moved on from the Redskins for the last time. As hard as it is to accept, the worse the Redskins are in the now the better Joe Gibbs looks in the rearview and I think Joe knows his second legacy needs some burnishing and there can be nothing better for that than Extreme Suckitude Redskins Edition for a few years.

Before the ExtremeSkins berzerkers waterboard me for blasphemy, I am not suggesting Joe would applaud what is happening now, he is allegedly responsible for many of the players being on this roster, I am merely saying that his view of Redskinsland at this point in his life is one of extreme detachment, he is old, has a successful business and family matters to attend, I feel fairly certain he is not susceptible to a letter writing campaign.

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If appealing to respected football ambassadors is the strategy then it kind of seems like we are already there. Hall of Fame freight train John Riggins, Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff, Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jurgenson, Super Bowl quarterback Joe Theismann and Redskins Ring of Fame inductee Brian Mitchell have all come down on the team like a ton of bricks. Dan may have varying degrees of respect for these guys as individuals, they are the guys hanging on the walls at Ashburn, they represent the unspoken presence of all the winners and hard workers that came before this generation of Redskins.

I can just imagine Dan, late at night in the archives room drunk again listening to Billie Holiday and sobbing softly with a copy of this photo in his hand:



All four of these guys are heart and soul of Redskinsland, no matter what you think of them now. Joe Theismann and John Riggins have turned into frustrated fans with outsized voices, if Dan does not respect them directly he must indirectly, they both still have active football voices and are respected by Redskins fans.

Jack Kent Cooke is Dan Snyder's predecessor and the owner widely recognized as the guy smart enough, rich enough and humble enough to step back and let the pros do their thing. Joe Gibbs, well Dan got a taste of that dish, it never tasted the same thirteen years later.

And there's that Super Bowl trophy.

Appealing to higher football powers: check.

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Revolutionary Redskins fans are doing exactly the right thing, wielding the only weapon we have and that is public and persistent shows of displeasure. Stay home, even if you paid, it is warmer there and the booze costs less. Boo if you go and they suck. Display your colors upside down, buy and wear protest gear, do not buy any official merchandise.

Every call into ESPravda 980 should be about dissatisfaction with ownership, same with every comment dropped on team owned internet media. Support local journalists that risk their direct access to the team by reporting the Revolution by reading them, clicking through the ads on their pages and by linking to them on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, start email chain letters.

Spread conspiracies of nonviolent protest like the Blackout, chant under the owner's box, always answer the same when Dan Snyder comes up in conversation, especially with rival NFC Beast fans: you are angry, dissatisfied, fed up, alarm them with your seriousness, vigor and inability to be mocked on the issue. Behave like 2-14 is a forgone conclusion, feel derision turn to pity but do not feel shame as a fan, feel embarrassed for the owner.

The goal is not to hurt Dan Snyder by taking away money from him, the goal is for him to see our dissatisfaction on every corner and at every water cooler. Dan may not get out of his bubble often, his lackeys do and they will see it and it will seep. He should find every sample polluted and no friendly redoubt to rationalize and walk away feeling like he is being accountable to the paying fans and Redskinsland at large.

We cannot make him do anything, all decisions are his alone, he needs to know it is different this time, it is not going away, there is no cavalry coming, there is no Joe Gibbs figure to rescue him, we will not be angry a while before shrugging and saying same old same old, nope not this time.

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All I want is good football, competitive football, that is the reason Curly R exists. Dan Snyder has had a decade and cannot get it done, he needs to fire everyone and I mean everyone, hire a competent general manager and step out of the day to day. Anything short of this and Dan risks a prolonged fan revolt, it may be abated here and there by winning stretches or if god forbid a draft pick works out, it will always from now on come back faster and angrier, the fans have taken to the streets and Dan is in the castle with the drawbridge up.

I am never ever not going to be a Redskins fan and Curly R is scheduled for renewal every season for the indefinite future.


Principle of the Revolution: The weapon of public displeasure never requires reloading.



Vancouver British Columbia steel workers, 1909 from here. Joe Theismann, Jack Kent Cooke, John Riggins and Joe Gibbs: AP photo from here.

Distress Call

Help or put me down

Dan Steinberg is the vanguard of the Burgundy Revolution, he captured this image from the parking lot today, Dan only described the situation and did not provide the appropriate context so allow me, an upside down flag means one or both of only two things:

1. The international sign of distress, in other words HELP;

2. Calling in a bomb strike on your own location, it means your position has been overrun.


In football terms both are appropriate right now in Washington.



Image of upside down Redskins flag from here.

Jim Zorn Relieved of Playcalling Duties

Band aid for a gusher

The Washington Post Redskins Insider and the ORB (Official Redskins Blog) are reporting that Redskins head coach Jim Zorn has been relieved of playcalling duties effective immediately. Coach Zorn met with shadow general manager Vinny Cerrato following tonight's loss to the previously winless Chiefs, Vinny voiced his opinion that coach Zorn quote had too much on his plate unquote and wanted someone else to call plays during games.

Exactly who will be calling plays should be known tomorrow by coach Zorn's regular midday press conference. Conventional wisdom says coach Zorn would want offensive coordinator Sherman Smith to assume gameday playcalling duties. Basic understanding of how the Redskins operate as an organization would indicate Vinny Cerrato would want two week old offensive consultant Sherman Lewis to call plays.

Our old friend Jason La Canfora reports Sherm Lewis will get the call, because he has playcalling experience which we have already chronicled is limited, Jim Zorn may already have more experience calling plays than Sherm Lewis.

As I watch NBC at 11:41 pm Sunday Dan Hellie of NBC 4 is reporting that the deal is already done, Sherm Lewis will be named playcaller tomorrow at the midday presser. Looks like a done deal.


Tony Dungy reacted to this in a way I totally agree with, if you are the coach it is your call to decide who calls the plays. There can be only one coach.


Step one: Management brings in a consultant to review your offense.

Step two: You are relieved of playcalling duties.

Step three: There is no step three.


The emasculation of Jim Zorn continues, at this point he must just be hanging on for the year's salary severance.



Jim Zorn: Nick Waas / AP photo from here.

Game over, the post game show is requesting fans text their thoughts on the loss to 68683, Curly R readers please weigh in