Dummy Del Rio is latest fool of toxic Commanders
Calling Jan. 6 a ‘dust-up’ is another part of Snyder clown show
This is about some things a slow thinker from pro football named Jack Del Rio said the other day. Del Rio, sounding as if he played without a helmet when he was in the league, was trying to explain his core beliefs, such as they are, about his country in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd. And maybe show the world at the same time that he is a dream employee for the Washington Commanders, a waste dump of an organization.
“I can look at images on the TV, people’s livelihoods are being destroyed, businesses are being burned down, no problem. And then we have a dust-up at the Capitol, nothing burned down, and we’re going to make that a major deal.”
Del Rio issued about half an apology on Twitter after that, or just a half-baked one, you decide:
“I made comments earlier today in referencing the attack that took place on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. I stand by my comments condemning violence in communities across the country. I say that while also expressing my support as an American citizen for peaceful protest in our country. I have fully supported all peaceful protests in America. I love, respect, and support all my fellow coaches, players, and staff that I work with and respect their views and opinions.”
It was as phony and disingenuous, even for sports, so often the home office for phony and disingenuous apologies once a sports figure finds himself getting flogged, often for sounding like a meathead, in the public square. The only statement he was walking back was the one about Jan. 6, 2021, a shameful and violent assault on the Capitol and on the transfer of power in a democracy, being a “dust up.”
He didn’t mean that, either. What he said originally is what he meant. It’s why the team fines $100,000 now, which isn’t enough and changes nothing about his beliefs, or who he is. The money, by the way, goes to the U.S. Capitol Police Memorial Fund. The Commanders ought to double that. Or triple it. At least, just because of the damage Del Rio did by opening his big mouth.
We hear all the time about the toxic work environment with the Washington Commanders, formerly known as the Washington Football Team, one called that because of its featherweight owner, Daniel Snyder, refused for as long as he did to remove the team’s racist nickname. Of course, Del Rio works for him. Because you know who the current toxic environment is with the Commanders?
Del Rio is.
Destiny and not head coach Ron Rivera brought Del Rio to Snyder, the lousiest owner in professional sports now that Donald Sterling is out of business. Usually, guys like Sterling and guys like
Snyder just go on and on, getting richer, getting new stadiums, watching the money roll in (in Snyder’s case that includes money he’s been accused of withholding from other owners) forever. They go on and on even when the Congress of the United States is investigating their business practices, especially as they relate to women who have worked for Snyder, women who say the operation was run by bums.
This was all before Snyder named his wife, Tanya, as coCEO, and why do you suppose?
Take a good hard look at what
Del Rio was really saying about social justice in this country, and how he acted as if the assault on the Capitol was some kind of speed bump on the way to President Biden’s election being certified on Jan. 6 before mean, dim-witted thugs, cheered on by the previous guy at the White House, essentially tried to demolish the guard rails on our way of governance, in one of the shameful moments in our country’s history.
So, this week a Proud Boy in training from the National Football League — and after all the rhetoric and money Commissioner Roger Goodell has thrown at social justice since George Floyd, what’s he going to do about Del Rio? — calls it a “dust-up.”
Now put that up against what Colin Kaepernick, now trying to find his way, maybe, back to pro football with the Raiders, did. He took a knee. Despite all the phony, old-boy rhetoric about that, he did not lead an insurrection, just a protest movement. He did not dishonor the flag, he did not dishonor our military. He did not smash windows, he did not attack the transfer of power, he did not assault police (the worst thing he ever did, and not for long, was to wear those pig socks, at the start of it for him). He did not storm government offices and go looking for the vice president of the United States, looking to do God-knows-what.
He took a knee, as a way of making his own statement about racial injustice in America. Before long, he was out of the game. Is Jack Del Rio on his way out of the game for what he said the other day, his rather ridiculous attempt at an apology, as trying to paint himself as someone trying to bring us all together and have a
conversation about race, notwithstanding? We’ll see about that, now that the NAACP is after him.
Already people are worried about the dreaded C words with Del Rio. Cancel culture. This concern mostly comes from people who didn’t give a rip across the years of what could have turned into Kaepernick’s prime when Kaepernick was essentially blackballed from pro football, despite being someone who, at his best, had one of the best and most versatile performances in NFL postseason history against the Packers (263 passing yards, 181 rushing yards, finally accounting for four touchdowns, January of 2013).
Then he took a knee, years before somebody like Del Rio comes along to offer an upraised middle finger to anybody who thinks Jan. 6 might have been something more than a dust-up, and makes the same gesture toward the way the country reacted after the knee was finally off George Floyd.
But there is a larger issue here beyond the stink now attached to Del Rio:
When is the National Football League going to do something real and meaningful about what the Commanders/FootballTeam have become on Snyder’s watch. At least Del Rio had to stand there and take it this week. When does Snyder have to do the same? When is there some accountability about a franchise that has been this kind of embarrassment, off the field and so often on, for so long?
For the time being, though, the face of Snyder’s team is Jack (Dust Up) Del Rio. It is merely perfect, and completely fitting.
“I believe what I believe and I’ll say what I want to say,” Del Rio said.
Somebody explain something to this guy: What he believes is the problem. The latest problem, and a beauty, at the clown show that employs him. For now.