When Dan Snyder was a hero

You might not believe it, but there was a time in the history of the Washington NFL team where Dan Snyder was a breath of fresh air.

It’s easy to look back at the mess he’s made over the past 15 years; it’s also a lot of fun. But lost in the gross incompetence, PR disasters and overall mismanagement that has plagued a once-proud franchise is the fact that when Snyder bought the team, he brought with him a huge sense of optimism.

Washington spent 1997 and 1998 engulfed in a messy legal battle between former owner Jack Kent Cooke’s sons, his widow, the bank and the IRS. All tough interests to root for. The 1991 Super Bowl seemed like a distant memory at that point. Cooke had been a revered figure in D.C., but he was also the embodiment of The Man. He owned the damn Chrysler building. He was a successful, white, old, rich guy, famous for his temper and cocaine-snorting trophy wife. Daniel Snyder, on the other hand, was The Fan.

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Snyder was portrayed by the media in a way that made him easy to like. He was fresh new blood for a franchise in need of a kick in the butt and the embodiment of a die-hard fan’s daydream. A fulfilled fantasy of a guy who struck it rich and decided to buy his favorite football team. Who couldn’t identify with that? How many late-night conversations have drifted towards the dream of becoming an overnight millionaire and ended with buying our favorite NFL franchise? The problem is that most people up the next day, whereas Dan Snyder kept the train rolling.

Part of the reason that Snyder was welcomed in Washington was that the details surrounding his fortune weren’t as clear then as they are now. With limited information about the behemoth that was Snyder Communications, fans were forced to rely on a Washington mediascape which had long been friendly towards the team and its three-time Super Bowl-winning owner. Fans were under the impression that Snyder was some sort of technology whiz kid who scored a big payday. The facts surrounding Snyder’s dealings weren’t so simple. In fact, the writing was on the wall if the fans had only known where to read it.

His dad had given him sizable loans to start businesses, some successful, some not. Snyder “bootstrapped” one venture by persuading his father to put a second-mortgage on the family’s European vacation home, which we can all relate to. To Snyder’s credit, he made decent money on a business that sent rich kids on Caribbean spring breaks via private jets and decided to let that money ride. He rolled his small fortune into a bigger bet that paid out in spades in Snyder Communications.

It’s true that Dan’s most successful business was technically in the communications industry, but that’s like saying that kidnappers are in the travel industry. The operations side of the Snyder Communications was much different from the sales and marketing end. Dan Snyder was really in the telemarketing business. He was the cheap sitcom trope of an unwelcome call at dinnertime.

He mostly targeted (“targeted” is a very generous word, and the Florida Attorney General might suggest otherwise) immigrant families. He would have his telemarketers call them and switch their long-distance service, often without the would-be customers’ knowledge or permission during a contentious dinnertime sales call.

Snyder wasn’t satisfied with ruining weekday nights, he set his sights on ruining Sunday afternoons as well.

After the purchase was confirmed by the other 31 owners, Snyder went to work importing his childhood heroes and big names in pursuit of a Lombardi trophy. It’s an era that is easy to make fun of in retrospect, much like Vince Young’s now-infamous “dream team” press conference, but at the time Washington fans were on cloud nine.

When he signed Bruce Smith, Deion Sanders and Mark Carrier, Washington applauded and -- more importantly to Snyder -- revenues soared. Washington fans were hoping for a common-man type of owner, the guy who might sit in the stands once in a while slamming Bud Lights with the Hoggettes while steering the team back to the Super Bowl. They were hoping for Whoopi Goldberg from Eddie and they got Gordon Gecko.

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The first clue that maybe Dan Snyder wasn’t exactly a benevolent fanchild came during his first full offseason as owner, when he decided to charge fans $20 for attending training camp and landed his helicopter on the damn practice field. Even the most optimistic fan could see that Snyder was a bottom-line businessman focused on robotic public relations and corporate partnerships above fan experience.

Fans don’t mind knowing that they’re being taken advantage of as long as it’s in the back of their heads, not crammed down their throats. Soon enough, he had succeeded in alienating a fanbase through incessant marketing and a terrible win/loss record. This young guy with tons of cash and confidence should have just been a rebound relationship for fans getting over a long relationship with Jack Kent Cooke, not a guy to settle down with.

He would eventually back off the carnival admission fees, but lawsuits against elderly fans and regional newspapers took their place. The helicopter take-offs and landings would continue, as if Richard Nixon kept changing his mind about that whole resignation thing. It wasn’t the 1970s anymore. Jack Kent Cooke wasn’t walking through that door. When Dan Snyder took over, the city of Washington was underscoring testing for Y2K, and Dan was thoughtfully preparing Washington’s jumbotron to read “00.”