As soon as July 20, the sale of the Commanders from Daniel Snyder to Josh Harris will become official. Team president Jason Wright will not be promptly asked to leave along with his soon-to-be-former boss.
According to the Washington Post, Wright “will be retained and given a chance to earn a continued role” with the team.
The report cites “two people with knowledge” of Harris’s strategy, adding that one of them said Wright will “absolutely have the opportunity to perform in his role,” and that no one should “expect or allude to any changes with his role at this time.”
The report also adds that there was no specification as to the length of the commitment.
Common sense suggests that Harris will hold everything in place for the balance of the season. That’s when he will presumably exercise the billionaire’s privilege of hiring whoever he wants to hire for the key positions. As we’ve said in the past when other teams were purchased, a new owner isn’t buying a team because the new owner wanted to acquire the employment rights of its key personnel. The new owner will have his or her own vision for the franchise, and that vision will be implemented unless the employees he inherited do enough to get him to change his or her mind.
If Harris intends to hire his own president, G.M., and/or head coach, it makes no sense for him to reveal that plan until he’s ready to implement it. And if, as it appears, he’ll be keeping everyone in place for 2023, he needs them to think they have a real chance to stay beyond the season in order to avoid having their uncertain futures distract them from the task at hand of effectively turning of the page from quarter-century of crap to a new dawn in D.C.
Could Wright do enough to stay? Sure. So could G.M. Martin Mayhew and coach Ron Rivera. And Harris needs them to believe that, especially with training camp opening only days after he gets the pink slip to the franchise.
As the Post notes, Harris took his time to assess the management group he inherited when buying the 76ers and the Devils. It makes sense to do that. He needs to get to know the team. He needs to understand what’s working and what isn’t. Ultimately, he needs to decide whether changes will make the team better, or whether continuity is in the organization’s best interests.
In some ways, every NFL team operates that way, with a constant assessment of whether things are working as they are. It definitely becomes a more significant concern when ownership of the team is transferred from the group that hired the top employees to a group that did not.
