On the day when Ted Leonsis's Caps -- D.C.'s only championship hopeful -- takes the ice, it highlights what's wrong with at least two of the other franchises in this city. The owners of the Redskins and the Nationals stink, as the Post writes.
Sally Jenkins takes a pick axe to Danny Snyder in her column. Her big swing:
This is Snyder's team; he was intimately involved in assembling it. He keeps his favorite players on speed dial, watches practices on the sidelines and demands face time and explanations from the coaches he personally hired... He is personally responsible for naming Vinny Cerrato, a proven failure, executive vice president of football operations, for the Redskins' lack of core strength, for their inability to power the ball in the red zone, which is thanks to his decade of neglect of the interior lines in favor of big free agent signings.
Ouch.
Tom Boswell drew the other assignment, ripping on the Nationals' owners, the Lerner Family, notably their emphasis on the bottom line:
"[R]esentment toward the way the Nats do business, already prevalent in Washington, is now spreading through the game...
"The Nats, who clinched the game's worst record on Wednesday thanks to a Pirates win, are on the verge of becoming a lightning rod of criticism, especially by big-market teams that pay into the game's huge revenue-sharing pot, according to numerous baseball sources contacted over the last three months...
"If the Nats keep operating as they have, they'll be seen as the only top-10 market with the gall to act like a bottom-five town."
Too bad we can't fire the owners.
One's a meddlesome busybody who has no idea how to run a football team or how to put the right people in place to make decisions. The other seems content to use the team to enrich his personal net worth. (Well, technically that could apply to both.)
Ted Leonsis, on the other hand, isn't a lousy owner, and compared to the Nats and the Skins, he's eligible for canonization.
Just last week, Ted posted his pledges to his fans on his blog. Among his pledges:
We will always operate the team as if it is a public trust. It is our job and responsibility to hold a mirror up to our community and be a reflection of the best of our fan base
We will always strive to be transparent and open and communicate often and honestly with our fan base
We will strive to offer value in all offerings to our fans. We seek ”Happiness” as a state of mind and being for our fan base
We will only be focused as an organization on winning the Stanley Cup. We have a singular goal
Can you imagine Snyder or Old Man Lerner publicly committing to something like that? (If they did, they'd be sure to sell you a laminated copy in their team stores for just $7.99)
D.C. has some of the worst, but it looks like we've got one of the best, too.
