Such A Headache…

I really do not mean to harp on the subject of the leaked emails related to the investigation of the Washington Football Team’s sexual harassment situation in its Front Office, but the story will not go away.  Yesterday, Roger Goodell said that the NFL was not the source of the leak; this morning there is a report in the Washington Post that says Tanya Snyder – – the co-CEO of the team and nominally the one running the show over the past several months – – told the other owners at their meeting that the Washington Football Team is not the source of the leaked emails.

Naturally, proclamations of that sort draw attention and encourage others to try to “unravel the mystery” as to “who dunnit.”  Let me try to frame the mystery here.

• We can be confident in saying that there are three definite residences for that trove of emails.  The WFT has them, the NFL has them and the investigator(s) led by Beth Wilkinson has them.  However, it is not possible to say that within those three entities there is only one copy or that portions of the complete inventory are not held by multiple individuals.
• Moreover, “heavily redacted” copies of some of the leaked emails were entered into evidence in a Federal Court by lawyers representing Danny Boy Snyder several months ago.  That fact alone says that there are other potential sources for leakage.

Therefore, Roger Goodell can only say with certainty that no one in the NFL to his knowledge is the source of the leaked emails and Tanya Snyder can only say the same thing about the WFT as the source of the leaks.  Unfortunately, that is about as far as I can go with deductive reasoning in this matter because once I get to the point where the possibility of multiple copies exists, there is no way to deduce how many there are or where they are.  So, off I go into the realm of speculation…

Just to be clear, I am not someone who is prone to conspiracy theories.

• I do not believe in the world domination of the Trilateral Commission nor in the puppet string manipulations by the Elders of Zion.
• There are no microchips in COVID-19 vaccinations.
• There are no biological agents in “chemtrails”.
• The Bermuda Triangle is bunk.
• Fluoridation of water supplies is not a Communist plot to undermine the health of Americans.
• Climate change is real.

The leaked emails in this matter injured one party directly and two parties tangentially.  Jon Gruden lost his job as the head coach of the Raiders and reports said that his contract called for him to make another $65M over the next six and a half years.  So, it would be reasonable to start by asking who might want to injure Jon Gruden in this way.  After ruminating on that for a moment, I come up with nothing and that leads me to the next step in my speculation here that Jon Gruden is “collateral damage” in this matter and not the target of the leaked emails.

The other two individuals who are tangentially damaged are Bruce Allen and Jeff Pash.  [Pash is the NFL general counsel and an executive VP of the league; he and Allen shared more than a few emails.]  So, who might have issues with either of those parties?  I mentioned above that some “heavily redacted” emails were submitted to a Federal Court by lawyers representing Daniel Snyder.  That submission was an attempt by Snyder’s lawyers to get the court to order discovery procedures involving Bruce Allen as part of a larger action Snyder filed against a New Delhi media outlet for defamation of character because the outlet asserted some sort of connection between Snyder and Jeffrey Epstein and sex-trafficking.

As the senior legal officer inside the NFL, it is reasonable to assume that he had knowledge of Ms. Wilkinson’s investigation and probably has been directly involved in any decision processes involving the assertion of confidentiality granted to those who came forward in that investigation.  I can imagine multiple scenarios where a variety of folks might have an issue with some position that Pash has taken in the past.  It is the multiplicity of those scenarios that makes me stop and recognize that all of this is speculation and cannot lead to any sort of conclusion I might reach with any confidence.

The fact that Allen as a team president was in email contact with Pash seems like a logical connection to make.  The fact that Gruden was with ESPN at the time of the email exchanges with Allen is not nearly as “natural” a happenstance.  But it is not necessarily nefarious either.  Here is something that makes me wonder:

• Were there other WFT officials who were corresponding via email with parties outside the team?  I have to think that is the case.
• So, why have only messages involving Allen been leaked?  Everyone else was as pure and the driven snow?
• This whole thing makes my teeth itch.

So, my plan now is to try to let this issue recede into memory – – assuming there is not another data dump later this week.  I will certainly look forward to the outcome(s) of the Congressional intervention into this matter; if they hold hearings on this and put those hearings on TV, I will await the SNL re-enactment of those hearings.  I will try to ignore the carefully worded statements issued by the NFL or the lawyers representing the women who were subjected to sexual harassment or the NFLPA or …

Finally, to end on a much lighter note than what is above, here is a Tweet recently from Brad Dickson formerly with the Omaha World -Herald:

“Nestle is recalling 28,000 lbs of DiGiorno Crispy Pan Crust Pepperoni Pizzas. What happened – did something healthy fall into the mix?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………