Jason Wright

Jason Wright To Depart Commanders Following 2024 Season

July 18th, 2024 at 12:41pm CST by Adam La Rose

The 2024 season will be the last for Jason Wright as a member of the Commanders. He and team owner Josh Harris said on Thursday Wright will leave the organization by the end of the upcoming campaign.

As detailed by Nicki Jhabvala and Mark Maske of the Washington Post, Wright will immediately step down from his role as president. He will carry on the duties he previously had in that capacity while taking on the title of senior advisor. Harris and Tad Brown will lead the search for Wright’s replacement.

The Post report notes that Wright – who joined the team in 2020 – was believed to have his previous contract expire in August, making his departure an unsurprising one. He could leave prior to the conclusion of the coming season, in which case the Commanders would allow him to accelerate the process of taking on his next opportunity. Today’s news was foreshadowed by the fact Wright, 42, was a finalist to succeed Mark Murphy as president of the Packers next year.

“This feels like the right moment for me to explore my next leadership opportunity,” a statement from Wright reads. “I’m extremely grateful to my Commanders colleagues, our fans and this community for all that we have accomplished these past four years, and am looking forward to the start of a very successful season for the Burgundy and Gold.”

Wright’s upcoming departure will mark another notable change in the front office following Harris’ 2023 purchase of the Commanders. The latter’s first season in control consisted of evaluating the organization at all levels before authorizing sweeping changes in recent months. That process has included Dan Quinn being hired as Ron Rivera‘s replacement on the sidelines as well as Adam Peters joining as general manager (although his predecessor, Martin Mayhew, remains in the organization). Earlier this week, it was learned ex-Panthers GM Scott Fitterer will be a member of Washington’s front office moving forward.

“Jason has made a remarkable impact on the Commanders organization since he joined four years ago,” a statement from Harris reads. “He stepped in at a time of immense challenge and has led this organization through an incredible transformation that set that stage for everything that is to come. I am extremely grateful to Jason for his partnership to me and the rest of the ownership group over the past year. His guidance has been invaluable and his leadership has helped reshape our culture.”

Wright’s hire was made during times of transition in the nation’s capital with the organization facing allegations of workplace misconduct and a toxic culture under then-owner Dan Snyder. Much has changed for the franchise since then, and Wright will look to use the improvements seen in Washington as a means of landing another high-ranking executive role on a new team.

Latest On Packers’ President/CEO Search

June 25th, 2024 at 6:10pm CST by Ben Levine

The Packers landed on a successor to Mark Murphy yesterday, with Ed Policy set to take over as the team’s president and CEO following the 2024 campaign. While Policy seemed like the natural choice to take over the top role, the organization still underwent an exhaustive search to find their new franchise leader.

As Albert Breer of SI.com notes, the team whittled down a list of 90 potential candidates to around 10 by the time Memorial Day came around. The search committee then held virtual interviews with the remaining candidates before inviting a smaller group to Green Bay for in-person interviews. As Breer notes, this “thorough process” wasn’t “required through the league’s mandated hiring practices.” However, considering that the Packers president/CEO effectively functions as the team’s owner, it was obviously in the search committee’s best interest to make the right decision.

One of the final candidates for the role was Commanders president Jason Wright, per Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports. Almost a decade after his playing career ended, the former NFL running back joined Washington’s franchise as president in 2020. The executive went on to help guide the franchise through their rebranding process while also leading the day-to-day operations. As Jones notes, Wright would have made history in Green Bay as the first black individual “to be in what’s essentially an owner’s chair.” Wright previously made history as the first black team president in NFL history.

Ultimately, the team landed on Policy as their new president/CEO. The former AFL president joined the Packers organization as vice president and general counsel in 2012. He took on the added responsibility of COO in 2018, and he’ll continue in that role until Murphy’s retirement at the end of the 2024 campaign.

The bylaws governing the Packers’ board of directors dictates that members must retire upon turning 70, which will be the case for Murphy on July 13, 2025. Until that time, the current president/CEO will work alongside his successor with the hopes of a seamless transition.

Commanders’ Next HC To Report To Adam Peters

January 19th, 2024 at 10:53am CST by Sam Robinson

Ron Rivera wielded more power than his Commanders successor will possess within the organization. The since-fired head coach spent much of his time in Washington running the show; the team’s next HC will not.

The Commanders are planning to give their newly hired president of football operations, Adam Peters, the keys. Their to-be-determined head coach will report to Peters, according to SI.com’s Albert Breer. This will be a shift for the franchise, who gave Rivera personnel power during the final Dan Snyder years.

While Peters follows Martin Mayhew as a Washington GM being hired from San Francisco, John Lynch‘s longtime lieutenant will be a more empowered figure with the NFC East franchise. After Washington spent 2020 without a GM, Rivera signed off on the Mayhew addition in 2021. While Mayhew held considerable power, Rivera was ultimately in charge. The dismissed HC has since said this setup is not ideal, and new owner Josh Harris had long been expected to bring forth a shift. Following Mayhew and Ran Carthon, Peters is the third Lynch-era 49ers exec to land a GM gig.

Some teams have both their head coach and GM report to ownership separately, while others use the owner-GM-HC workflow model. After rumblings of Harris seeking an organizational restructure, the Commanders can now be slotted in the latter category. Regarding this Peters-fronted restructuring, the new front office boss will evaluate the team’s personnel setup. This evaluation, however, will not include Commanders president Jason Wright, per Front Office Sports’ AJ Perez. Wright’s work will fall outside of Peters’ purview. Snyder hired Wright to head up the team’s business side in 2020.

Peters will have authority to determine the roles of Mayhew and VP of player personnel Marty Hurney. Both of these execs have been rumored to be on the outs, but no firings are known to have transpired yet. Peters and Mayhew worked together for nearly four years in San Francisco. The Peters hire, rather than the organization going with its other finalist (Bears assistant GM Ian Cunningham), would seem to point to Mayhew staying in a different capacity.

Peters, who turned down the chance to interview for the Cardinals and Titans’ GM jobs last year, always loomed as a logical candidate. But he officially became a Commanders target in December, when former Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers — brought in by Harris as an advisor during this transition — asked ex-Vikings GM Rick Spielman if he would also help out, Breer adds. These two did prep work beginning around Week 16, with Harris wanting good background in the event he fired Rivera. Spielman came up with a 15-person list for the football ops job, and he and Myers whittled it down to the Peters-Cunningham contingent.

Spielman, whom the Vikings fired following the 2021 season, did not tell anyone who he was working for during this research effort, per Breer. The first round of interviews occurred at Harris’ Miami office. Co-owners Magic Johnson, Mitchell Rales and David Blitzer also spent extensive time with the candidates, with Breer adding the latter trio offered Harris input that led to the Peters decision. We will soon see how the Spielman- and Myers-led research effort turns out on the coaching front.

Josh Harris Not Expected To Make Major Changes Following Commanders Sale

July 1st, 2023 at 9:48am CST by Ben Levine

Josh Harris will officially become the Commanders owner later this month. While Daniel Snyder‘s sale of the team will surely have a long-lasting impact on the organization, the new owner isn’t expected to make any immediate changes.

According to Ben Standig of The Athletic, Harris isn’t expected to “make major staff changes” when he officially takes over the organization. This includes the job status of team president Jason Wright, with a source telling Nicki Jhabvala and Mark Maske of the Washington Post that Wright will “absolutely have the opportunity to perform in his role.”

Wright was hired by the Commanders in 2020, becoming the first Black team president in NFL history. As Jhabvala and Maske write, the executive was hired to “improve the workplace culture of a franchise embroiled in controversy,” and Wright did help navigate the organization through multiple investigations and eventual “senior business personnel” overhauls.

The team president has also faced criticism, mostly when it comes to near-league-bottom ticket sales over the past two years. Wright also drew some ire when it came to the Commanders’ “missteps in honoring the late Sean Taylor, a bounced raffle check and the tepid public response to its new name.”

Harris isn’t expected to shake things up, at least right away. Per Standig, the owner intends to “take his time to evaluate current staff before considering changes.” This buys executives like Wright some extra time to build a rapport with their new boss, but as Standig points out, Harris surely has “a list of potential executives to join him in Washington.”

It sounds like Harris also won’t make any rash decisions when it comes to the coaching staff and front office, including head coach Ron Rivera and general manager Martin Mayhew. Of course, considering the timing of the sale, it seemed extremely unlikely that Harris would shake up those two areas of the operation with training camp rapidly approaching.

A league meeting has been scheduled for July 20 to ratify the Commanders sale. As the Washington Post notes, Harris and his group aren’t allowed to “to speak with employees of the team about future changes” until that time.

Owners Not Expected To Address Dan Snyder’s Ownership Status At Meetings

October 13th, 2022 at 4:22pm CST by Sam Robinson

As the NFL and House Oversight Committee’s separate investigations into Dan Snyder and his franchise’s workplace conduct persist, the subject of the longtime Washington owner’s potential ouster continues to come up.

A “growing consensus” exists in some ownership circles that removing Snyder from his post would be the best course of action for the NFL, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports. This consensus has certainly formed among NFL followers and many fans of Snyder’s franchise, but the embattled leader’s fellow owners are the only figures who count here. Twenty-four votes are necessary for this monumental step to take place.

This follows a Washington Post report that indicated some owners are warming to the idea of forcing Snyder to sell his franchise, but reaching the 24-vote threshold is another matter entirely. But that historic prospect has moved closer to the NFL radar than it was a year ago, Florio adds. And, as this once-unthinkable scenario gains steam, Snyder is going on the offensive.

Many owners would like to see Snyder out, according to ESPN.com’s Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Tisha Thompson, but the 57-year-old Commanders owner is believed to have hired firms to investigate other owners and Roger Goodell for the purposes of gathering dirt — in the event a vote becomes a genuine possibility.

Snyder has authorized investigations of “at least six” owners, per ESPN.com, including Jerry Jones, who has been a longtime defender of his fellow NFC East owner. Furthermore, Snyder has reached out to Jones for support in recent weeks — in an effort to prevent the owners from removing him — only the Cowboys owner has distanced himself from his peer. Snyder has “lost Jerry,” an executive told ESPN.com, and this explosive report indicates the Dallas owner has said he is not sure he can protect Snyder any longer. Investigations of this sort are not new for Snyder, who was believed to have conducted shadow investigations on former employees.

As of now, the owners are not planning to formally discuss the Snyder matter. The next round of owners’ meetings — set for next week in New York — does not have a Snyder item on the docket, Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press reports (on Twitter). While that obviously does not stop owners from addressing the Snyder situation privately, they are not preparing any votes yet. Part of the reason no vote is imminent: removing one owner opens the door to a future in which this drastic step could be taken against another, Armando Salguero of Outkick notes.

Counting Snyder scandals is difficult at this point. The one that produced the current circumstances came in 2021, when an NFL investigation into Washington’s workplace culture led to Snyder being fined $10MM and ceding day-to-day control of his franchise to his wife Tanya. Despite last year’s development being aimed at leading Snyder away from the team — a de facto suspension — Snyder denied he was suspended and has been around the team at points during his ensuing controversies.

The NFL changed course on a plan to have that investigation produce a written report, leading to the Oversight Committee’s probe and the biggest set of problems to hit Snyder during his ownership tenure. Snyder recently attempted to again shift blame to former team president Bruce Allen, via an attorney letter to Committee chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, according to the Washington Post’s Liz Clarke, Mark Maske and Nicki Jhabvala. The Committee deemed Snyder’s previous attempts to paint Allen as the architect of a toxic workplace culture, partially by citing Allen’s emails that ended up leading to Jon Gruden‘s Raiders exit, as scapegoating.

The Commanders denied the accuracy of ESPN’s report, one that also invited questions about team president Jason Wright‘s true authority to go about repairing the team’s culture. The Commanders’ statement (via The Athletic’s Ben Standig, on Twitter) called the report a “two-year misinformation campaign to coerce the sale of the team.” Snyder will not accept being forced to sell, according to the report. The Snyder situation may look a bit different after recent NBA developments. After a lengthy investigation into Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury owner Robert Sarver led to his suspension; Sarver has begun the process of selling his teams.

Washington, which made five Super Bowl appearances during a 20-year span from 1972-1991, has seen its status within the NFL nosedive under Snyder. The team has three 10-win seasons since Snyder’s 1999 purchase and has yet to secure back-to-back playoff berths during this period.

NFC East Notes: Eagles, Washington, Staff, Vander Esch

August 18th, 2020 at 2:55pm CST by Sam Robinson

While the Eagles are not officially holding out hope Brandon Brooks can return late in the 2020 season, they have not shut that prospect down. They placed the Pro Bowl guard on the PUP list, rather than injured reserve. Lane Johnson said his longtime teammate is ahead of schedule and can see him returning from his latest Achilles tear before the season ends, Tim McManus of ESPN.com tweets. Brooks recovered from a January 2019 Achilles tear to return in time for Week 1 last season. Following the same timetable, Brooks could conceivably be in play for a late-December or January re-emergence. As players like Terrell Suggs and Michael Crabtree showed during the 2010s, an offseason Achilles tear is not an automatic season-ender. Of course, Brooks is carrying a bit more weight and suffered his injury later in the offseason. Longtime Eagles left tackle Jason Peters is currently manning Brooks’ right guard position.

As the NFC East teams begin their padded training camp practices, here is the latest from the division:

Doug Pederson is back at work after contracting COVID-19. The fifth-year Eagles HC was the third known coach to test positive for the coronavirus, following Sean Payton and Anthony Lynn. Unlike the Saints and Chargers coaches, Pederson, 52, was asymptomatic.
Leighton Vander Esch has been playing a new position at Cowboys camp. The third-year linebacker has swapped spots with Jaylon Smith, with Vander Esch now playing middle linebacker and Smith shifting to the weak side, Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes. Both players are set to reprise their roles as Dallas’ three-down ‘backers. The Cowboys changed defensive coordinators this offseason, moving from Rod Marinelli to Mike Nolan. Vander Esch is returning from offseason neck surgery.
Washington made a historic business-side hire, naming Jason Wright as team president. A former linebacker who played seven seasons with the Falcons, Browns and Cardinals, Wright is the NFL’s first Black team president and the fourth former player to be named to such a post. While the 38-year-old exec will succeed Bruce Allen, his responsibilities will be exclusively on the business side, John Keim of ESPN.com notes. Washington remains without a nominal GM.
The Cowboys will have a new voice in their quarterbacks room, at least for training camp. Seneca Wallace is working with Dallas’ QBs as a training camp staffer, Jon Machota of The Athletic tweets. Wallace joins fellow recent NFL passers Kellen Moore and Scott Tolzien on the Cowboys’ staff. Like Tolzien, Wallace spent time in Green Bay during Mike McCarthy‘s run.