Dan Snyder...Still a micro-manager?

[wormer]

Interesting item below. I dislike the Redskins front office more and more everyday.


In The Interest of Accuracy (My Last Blog About Ryan Clark and Dan Snyder) By Jason La Canfora

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/redskins ... cy_my.html

You just never know how your day is going to turn out on this beat. Trying to make phone calls from home, work on a big story for Sunday's paper and spend some time with my daughter on Tuesday - with the players off and Howard holding down the fort at Redskins Park - but it just wasn't meant to be. Seems like Dan Snyder and some of his people were awful upset about an item I wrote on Ryan Clark's contract negotiations, so I'll walk you through the last 24 hours in my life - since my cell phone started buzzing while taking Chloe to hang out with Santa Claus for a little while at the mall.

So the Redskins read the blog and freak out, as I am told, because it gives the impression that Dan Snyder was involved in contract negotiations. To refresh: The blog item stated that Clark had made it known he wanted a deal in the range of what the Skins gave former safety Matt Bowen, with a $1.5 million signing bonus. And that in the course of Snyder's conversations with Clark's representative the owner said he was not going to overspend like that anymore, that the Redskins offer of a $750,000 signing bonus was their final offer and that Clark was not going to get that $1.5 million bonus he was seeking anywhere.

People in the font office read the blog and are upset, because they do not want it to come across like Dan is involved in this process. They believe this item makes it look like Dan, and only, Dan is negotiating with Clark, which in fact is not the case, as we have written over the years that Eric Schaffer, their salary cap expert, handled the nitty-gritty of hammering out contracts.

Schaffer, who has always seemed like a very good guy from my experiences but like many in this organization is probably forced to do things he probably would not normally consider on his own (it happens to me too, probably true in any job), calls Clark's agent, Joel Turner. Turner has no idea what the team is upset about and tells the Redskins he had nothing to do with the blog item and no idea it was out there.

The team assumes Turner is a source of this information, and, as they are want to do with agents, tells them that Snyder's name should be kept out of print and that speaking about contract talks does not bode well for future negotiations with Washington (If I had a $10-spot for every time an agent has repeated this to me over the last three years I would no longer have to fund Chloe's 529 college account). Joel is taken aback, and gives me a call to ask what's going on. I tell him it's funny, I had not heard anything from the Redskins. I read everything I wrote in the blog to him and ask if it is accurate. He says it is.

I decide to call Eric at his office, and tell him that I can be reached at any time on my cell about anything I write. I am always at Redskins Park and take a stand-up approach and am willing to hear him out on anything. I still have not heard back. In the meantime, Schaffer - again, I highly doubt of his own free will - calls Turner back to ask if he had straightened things up with me.

Turner lives in the Mytle Beach area, where a huge storm is brewing, he is trying to eat lunch and has other things going on. So now he calls me again and tells me that the Redskins are still upset about whatever I wrote, and, in the interests of accuracy, he gives me an on-the-record account of what happened in the Clark negotiations. We both decide that this whole thing is bizarre, and Joel is adamant about how much Ryan likes Snyder, how much he loved the organization and how this all seems trite.

We decide that I'll keep my notes on our conversation, and, if the Redskins make an issue of or want it "cleared up," I'll can go ahead and use it in whatever forum is appropriate. So last night I check my email while working on a story and Karl Swanson, Snyder's PR guy, sends me an email saying I mischaracterized Dan's role in the Clark negotiations, and have given fans the impression that Snyder was heavily involved in contract talks. I admit, I'm getting a little miffed at this point.

After years of Swanson putting out misleading or erroneous press releases in response to my work, and questioning things I write with less-than-accurate statements, I have become somewhat accustomed to this kind of thing. Over the years people like Antonio Pierce, Laveranues Coles and LaVar Arrington have given their repeated on-the-record accounts of contracts talks with the Redskins and their dealings with Snyder, and somehow what they say never matches what the team says. It's been a recurring theme on this beat.

I respond to Karl that in the blog I mentioned two conversations involving Dan, over the course of what was a yearlong negotiation. The issue over whether or not 4 conversations is considered "negotiating" or not, I suppose, is of debate to them.

So I go back to my notes from my talk with Joel, and start typing them up.

"Did Mr. Snyder call me - yes," Turner said. "How many times did he call me - three times (before Clark signed in Pittsburgh) but the fourth call was more important than the other three, because that's when Mr. Snyder called to congratulate us on the contract from Pittsburgh and to wish Ryan well. We really appreciated that and we'll always appreciate the Redskins for giving Ryan a chance to play and for what the organization did for Ryan and his family.

"But I'm not going to lie. Mr. Snyder did call me at different times during the negotiations. At one point in March he said they really wanted to re-sign Ryan and that this (offer) was the best they could do. He wasn't involved in the details - that was between Eric Schaffer and myself - but we did speak. Now, if they want to say that those conversations were not a part of the negotiation, that's fine. Everyone has a different point of view. I suppose if you asked the government right now they'd probably tell you they are winning the war in Iraq."

So now you sleep on it, and figure it's probably not worth following up on. Then you check your email and see that Karl is still convinced that this small blog item gave off seriously misleading impression of the owner. We go through a few more emails in the morning, back-and-forth. Maybe I really need to un-do this atrocity after all, in fairness to Mr. Snyder and his handlers - to clear up any misconceptions that nay have formed. They seem pretty convinced.

So if you were me, would you put it all out there and let the good, and acutely knowledgeable people of the blog form their own ideas, presenting all the details of a Tuesday covering a 3-7 team that seemingly would have bigger fish to fry? Part of you thinks that the team might look better if they/you let it die, but Swanson is pretty adamant that you have fostered the idea of intense face-to-face negotiations between Snyder and Clark, which they are not pleased with, despite them now conceding the overall accuracy of the content of your original blog post, but concerned with its context.

What would you guys do? Oh man, guess this is already out there now. Whoops. My bad.

[Gnome]

This guy should be writing for Soap Opera Digest.

Give me a break. If you wanted to, you could go down to the local paint store, start interviewing employees and bosses and come up with the same kind of drama - it's human nature and it's just business.

This is just gossip. And I don't buy 'little' blog. If your job is to write and report about the Skins, any time you write and report about the Skins in the public you're on the job. And if you're job is to gossip about the Skins, it's only fair the Skins come back at you the way people in entertainment come back at the gossip rags.

[SkinzCanes]

Typical nonsense from the front office. LaConfora's original story was right on and the way the Skins have handled it just shows that they know that they were wrong in the way that they treated Clark. A small blog story and they throw a hissy-fit over it.

[SkinsJock]

Typical BS from this guy - he obviously wanted to portray this in the way that he did and is trying to justify his "position".

Any time an article comes out like this I must admit to being biased towards the redskins point of view - because guess what? I think these guys like to make a lot of this stuff up to try and be "the media guy" in the spotlight.

I also love that they can never seem to get anything official from the FO - they have to get the information from someone else.

just another BS story about the fantastic owner of the best team in the NFL - the Washington Redskins

[Irn-Bru]

This guy should be writing for Soap Opera Digest.

Give me a break. If you wanted to, you could go down to the local paint store, start interviewing employees and bosses and come up with the same kind of drama - it's human nature and it's just business.

This is just gossip. And I don't buy 'little' blog. If your job is to write and report about the Skins, any time you write and report about the Skins in the public you're on the job. And if you're job is to gossip about the Skins, it's only fair the Skins come back at you the way people in entertainment come back at the gossip rags.

I agree. Say what you want about the Redskins' FO but Canfora is just plain moronic in how he approaches reporting on the Skins, including these blogs. It's too bad, because it looks like he'd have some good things to say if he wasn't so self-interested and agenda-driven.

[wormer]

Typical nonsense from the front office. LaConfora's original story was right on and the way the Skins have handled it just shows that they know that they were wrong in the way that they treated Clark. A small blog story and they throw a hissy-fit over it.

You hit the nail on the head SkinzCanes.

[Buttercock]

Unless any of this can bring Clark back, it needs to just be let go. If your gonna put something in writing, take your lumps when they come and dont b!tch about it. By the way, is he actually SURPRISED that Snyder has a propaganda-guy to spin things in better light for his investment??

[SkinsJock]

... is he actually SURPRISED that Snyder has a propaganda-guy to spin things in better light for his investment??

AND that he thinks he needs it in the city that is considered the spin capital of the world?
I mean this is a city that loves him and sees only the good, why would he need a propaganda machine

[SkinzCanes]

I think that this incident, along with the Brunll/Czaban spat, shows how sensitive the organization is to what the media says. For the most part, the DC sports media is a joke. They dont ask hard questions of the team and are afraid, for the most part to upset Snyder and the Skins. In places like NY or Philly this wouldn't fly at all.