Commanders Sale, Part One: Why do I get the feeling Dan Snyder is about to be whacked?

Seriously.

Killed.  Mafia-style.

Several reports have come out this week about Dan Snyder's conduct in the weeks leading up to the NFL punishment, which, if all goes right, will result in the forced sale of the Washington Commanders to an investment group led by private-equity billionaire Josh Harris (for $6 billion) next Thursday in Minneapolis.

(The owners meeting there will probably be so contentious, it will not cover two other needed league business items:  A new contract for Der Kommissar Goodell, and a plan to make Tom Brady a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.)

That is, until the shit hit the fan this week.

First, an extensive ESPN article into the links between the firing of Jon Gruden as coach of the Raiders for vitriolic email communications and the Dan Snyder trove of league e-mails, and a larger question as to who actually leaked the emails to begin with.

In it are a treasure trove of charges and countercharges, including:

• That, to be allowed to dictate the terms of whatever "punishment" he was to receive, Snyder showed the league a "Blackmail Powerpoint" of various and sundry NFL dirty laundry.
• Which Snyder would release unless he got what he wanted.
• That the racist diatribes of the likes of Snyder, then (10 years ago)- Washington GM Bruce Allen and Gruden (who was working for ESPN on Monday Night Football at the time) provided the tipping point for the reelection of DeMaurice Smith as head of the NFLPA, as a partner for the owners -- NOT to look out for the players!
• Mark Davis, owner of the Raiders, did not want to fire Gruden as head coach of the team -- forced to by the league, in an impassioned call from Goodell and NFL general counsel Jeff Pash the Friday before he was fired.
• If you want an idea of why the Las Vegas Raiders have not enjoyed the level of success a number of other relocated teams have in the last number of years, here you go:  Once a second bunch of e-mails hit the table (including homophobia), forcing Davis' hand, this was his quoted reaction to Gruden, according to ESPN:  "Fuck the NFL.  And fuck Dan Snyder."
• Two weeks later, Goodell denied any and all involvement in leaking the emails.
• In October of last year, the league stated it felt that Snyder had.
• The ESPN investigation, however, has come up with any number of possible leads:
• Four owners believe Goodell was directly involved.  A number of parties believe the league did have a hand in it.
• An associate of DeMaurice Smith said Smith actually had bragged about leaking the racist diatribe, the same day he was facing a union vote to retain his position.  Smith, reportedly, believes that leak got him the one vote he needed to stay NFLPA head.
• Legal wranglings by Snyder, in concert with Roc Nation, the Jay-Z founded entertainment corporation with a small contract with the NFL for "social justice issues".  Snyder's New York legal firm denies this.   
• They were contacted by Patriots owner (and ersatz Deputy Commissioner) Robert Kraft in 2018 to try to deflect the Colin Kaepernick blackballing.
• Gruden had an enemies' list, cultivated beginning when Gruden first coached the Raiders in 1998 (Al Davis began that list with the NFL league office, a rivalry which began when Davis wanted to be AFL-NFL Commissioner upon the merger, rather than Pete Rozelle...)
• One rigging theory of Al Davis was that the league personally nixed John Elway being traded to the Raiders in 1983 -- the league fearing that, with such a generational talent, the Raiders would be one of the prominent teams going forward, something Davis (and a lot of us) felt the NFL did not want!
• Gruden let that boil over on Monday Night Football in a late-2011 game between Atlanta and New Orleans.  A flagged helmet-to-helmet hit drew the ire of Gruden, and he made no secret of telling the audience.
• That got a visit to the principal's office.  They wanted to teach him about player safety.  He never went, because the people the league were putting in front of him were responsible for some of the dirtiest play in the game's history.
• This was not forgotten years later when Gruden wanted to talk to Goodell directly about league youth initiatives.  Goodell sent an associate instead.
• COVID fines also infuriated Gruden, especially when Sean Payton said Gruden was the only coach who actually paid his fine.
• Dan Snyder was also on the list of enemies, as the firing of Bruce Allen and legal wrangling over his contract still loomed large.

And, as late as a previous 2023 owners' meeting, the league still expects the sale to go through as demanded.

Jon Gruden and Dan Snyder may have something to say on this.