Roger Goodell offered up an excuse as to why the NFL won’t be releasing a written report on the Washington Football Team investigation on Tuesday. One owner has already disagreed with him publicly on the matter.
“Probably,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said, when asked whether a report should be released. “Yeah. I think that there should be. Yeah. Especially with some of the things that were, I guess, charged. Yeah, I believe so, I think the people believed that deserve it, especially the people that were, quote, victims.”
Davis has an obvious reason for wanting a written report: his head coach resigned because of leaked emails from the investigation. Jon Gruden has suffered the most consequences of a probe that was meant to focus on the toxic workplace at the Washington Football Team under Dan Snyder’s stewardship.
In July, The NFL fined Washington $10 million and forced Snyder to hand over control of daily operations to his wife, Tanya, for an unspecified period of time. But exactly what the hundreds of thousands of emails reviewed by attorney Beth Wilkinson turned up is unknown – and Goodell has been steadfast in saying there won’t be a written report.
Goodell justified it Tuesday by saying that there wouldn’t be a report because some employees who came forward requested anonymity. That line, on the same day the Chicago Blackhawks publicly released a report on their own sexual assault scandal which protected anonymity of parties who requested it, fell on deaf ears.
“I do think he’s been held accountable,” Goodell told reporters of Snyder. “I think the organization has been held accountable. I think we’ve given an unprecedented fine. Dan Snyder has not been involved with the organization for now almost four months. And obviously we are focused on making sure that policies … will be maintained and that we can ensure that will happen with this organization.”