MVN - Most Valuable Network

Daniel Snyder morphs to a smarter, more mature aggression

Hat tip to Skin Patrol over at Hog Haven who points to David Elfin’s interview of Daniel Snyder appearing in today’s the Washington Times. Elfin tracked down the elusive Washington Redskins owner in Palm Beach at the NFL owner’s meeting.

Snyder said he was just a kid [34] when he bought the Redskins in 1999 and made highly questionable roster moves with teen-age abandon. But now…

“I’ve matured. I wasn’t patient enough in certain areas early on. I didn’t understand the game the way I do now. I didn’t understand the agents, the contractual relationship with the salary cap, the importance of the age of players. Now it’s easy for me, second nature.”

Snyder says he is just as energetic and success-driven as he’s always been, but now his experience and patience helps him to be a better owner.

Williams and Zorn

Patience is a virtue cited by Snyder at Joe Gibbs’ farewell press conference. Everyone took Snyder’s statement of learning “great patience” from Gibbs to mean a smarter approach to building a winning team, starting with promoting Gregg Williams to head coach. But, Snyder did not get a comfortable feel with Williams.

“I wanted to see what [Gregg] had learned from Joe. That was the most important thing. At the end of the day, [Gregg] wasn’t right for us.”

What Gregg learned from Joe? Williams often said that he came to the Redskins and rebuffed head coach offers to learn coaching leadership from Joe Gibbs.

Snyder was silent on what Gibbs-like qualities Williams lacked, but was effusive about Jim Zorn.

“What I really like about Jim is that he’s similar to Joe in that he’s a steady guy,” Mr. Snyder said. “Joe is … a steady man through the good times of winning and the bad times of losing. Jim feels very similar to me. There’s no panic. He’s just steady.”

So, Snyder picked the guy who showed the most Joeness, but who is the least experienced of the candidates interviewed.

Maybe Snyder has the experience enough to make up the difference.
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Tidbits from the interview transcript:

• Snyder likes Steve Spurrier “very much” and has become friends with Marty Schottenheimer
• Sits on the NFL on the Hall of Fame committee, the broadcast committee, the digital committee, the business ventures committee, which he should be quite good at.
• Feels that the NFC East is the best division. Snyder says he and Gibbs felt that, if they got past Seattle in the playoffs, the Redskins would have made it as far as the conference championship game at Green Bay.
• Hasn’t thought much about relocating the team back to the District of Columbia. He likes FedEx Field. Other owners consider it an “awesome” facility.
• Expects to use all of the $7 million of salary cap on the draft and trades of interest.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Jim Zorn, Redskins, Washington Redskins, Daniel Snyder, Joe Gibbs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.