Daly: A decade of Dan

Dan Snyder was barely older than London Fletcher is now when he took possession of the Redskins in 1999. Inasmuch as Jack Kent Cooke owned the team until the day he died - as did the franchise’s founder, George Preston Marshall - it’s entirely possible we’re only at the end of the first quarter, so to speak, of the Snyder era.

Some, no doubt, will find this a horrifying thought, because in the first Decade of Dan, the Redskins didn’t exactly add to their Lombardi Trophy collection. In fact, Snyder’s first decade (three playoff berths, no appearances in the NFC championship game) was the least successful first decade of any of the Redskins’ major rulers - much worse than Marshall’s (three title games, one championship in his first 10 years); much, much worse than Cooke’s (three Super Bowls, two championships); and even worse than Edward Bennett Williams’ (four playoff berths, one Super Bowl appearance and a .555 winning percentage to Snyder’s .473).

Sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings, but it’s difficult to ignore numbers like these when assessing Snyder’s performance as an owner. As a businessman - where his strengths have always lied - he’s had his share of triumphs with the Redskins. The value of the franchise has nearly doubled in the past decade to $1.55 billion, according to Forbes’ computations, and the team plays to the NFL’s biggest crowds and makes the biggest profit.

But that’s not the bottom line for Redskins fans; the bottom line is championships, Super Bowls. And under Dan, the club hasn’t come close to one - nor does there appear to be one on the horizon. No, the Redskins are stuck in the middle, a good bet to go somewhere between 7-9 and 9-7 just about every season - no matter how many millions Snyder throws around in free agency.

It’s hard not to wonder whether the Redskins’ healthy profit margin hurts more than helps them. Think about it: If the team didn’t rake in so much dough, Snyder would be forced to be more creative to remain competitive. Thus, he might rely more on the draft instead of continually cherry-picking other teams’ players. That’s how the Patriots, Eagles and other elite franchises have managed to stay on top year after year.

But Dan, for whatever Freudian reasons, has always been the acquisitive sort. As we’ve seen over and over again, there are some free agent prizes - such as Albert Haynesworth this past offseason or Deion Sanders before that - he simply has to have.

At least it’s quieter now around Redskin Park than it was in Snyder’s first few seasons. Joe Gibbs’ four-year restoration might have brought mixed results, but it also brought four years of relative stability (aside from all the offensive overhauling). The offseason can still get a little crazy - witness the Great Jay Cutler Chase in the spring - but at least Dan doesn’t change coaches every year anymore.

Indeed, except for the occasional news conference to announce the latest Big Signing, he utters nary a public word. He was considerably more visible in the first couple of seasons, storming into the locker room to hold a closed-door meeting with Norv Turner after a bad loss in Dallas, firing him with a 7-6 record the next year and generally running the Redskins like a fantasy league team.

Soon enough, though, he retreated into the shadows. It was safer there. Simply put, his skin lacked the requisite thickness to be lampooned in “Tank McNamara” for breakfast, ridiculed by a sports columnist for lunch and turned into a punch line by Jay Leno for a nightcap. It didn’t help, either, that he wasn’t jaunty like Cooke or witty like EBW or amusingly bombastic like Marshall, that he never sounded like he was having much fun running one of the greatest franchises in sports.

As a result, we have an owner who is ridiculously underexposed and a team of players who - given their modest accomplishments - are ridiculously overexposed. It’s all Redskins, all the time at Redskins.com and on Redskins TV. There’s also Redskins programming on Comcast SportsNet and plenty of Redskins chatter on Radio Free Dan (aka Snyder’s Red Zebra Broadcasting network). Redskins tweet, Redskins blog, Redskins do commercials. Snyder might be an invisible man, but his players have never been more ubiquitous.

It’s all part of Dan’s attempt to control the message, to connect directly with Redskins Nation rather than through the filter of newspapers and other media not affiliated with the club. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Or to put it another way, you can’t make chicken salad out of 8-8 (a record the Redskins have posted three times since he became owner).

A dozen Tokyo Roses couldn’t disguise the fact that, after a decade, Snyder’s Redskins are still looking up at the Giants, Eagles and Cowboys in the NFC East. That doesn’t mean they’re the worst team on Roger Goodell’s green earth, just that, for all their resources, they continue to underachieve.

Everything a franchise needs to be successful is here in Washington - an affluent, adoring fan base, a 90,000-seat stadium, five NFL championships and some of the best rivalries in the NFL. But 10 years into his tenure as the Redskins’ caretaker, Snyder is still looking for the right buttons to push, still looking, really, for a quarterback as good as the one he couldn’t wait to get rid of in 2001 (Brad Johnson, who later won the Super Bowl with the Bucs).

And now the second quarter of the Snyder era is about to begin. But first, this word about the new Redskins scratch-off game from the Virginia Lottery…