The NFL has an obsession with ensuring that every team has one person — and only one person — who can vote on league matters at league meetings. With Daniel Snyder’s double-secret probation that either has or hasn’t ended still keeping him away, his wife Tanya isn’t present, either.
It’s not a huge surprise, since a deal has been signed for the Snyders to sell the team to Josh Harris. Still, someone needed to be able to cast votes on important issues. On issues that came down to one vote.
Like the Thursday night flexing vote. The league office got just enough “yes” votes to push it through. Twenty-four teams voted in favor of it, and eight teams opposed it. If only one of the teams that voted in favor of Thursday night flexing had voted against it, the measure would have failed.
The Commanders could have been that vote.
According to a team spokesperson, franchise president Jason Wright is representing the team at these meetings. He’s also casting the votes.
And here’s where it gets a little confusing. We’d previously been told that the Commanders were opposed to Thursday night flexing in March. We reported it, without anyone pushing back against the reporting. (That’s hardly dispositive, but plenty of teams aren’t bashful about telling us when we got something wrong.)
Now, the Commanders say they were never against it.
Regardless of whether they were against it before they were for it, there definitely were and still are people within the organization who are opposed to it. The real question is whether the Commanders voiced opposition to it in March, and whether they needed to be flipped from no to yes, in order to push the measure through.
Also, it’s one thing for Wright to cast the ballot. Who made the decision? Weight? The Snyders? Harris?
In the end, that “yes” vote helped the league tremendously at a time when the Commanders could use a little help, especially as it relates to the specific structure of the Josh Harris bid ultimately securing 24 “yes” votes of its own at some upcoming gathering of the owners. If the Commanders really were against it before they were before it, the value of the Commanders’ assistance to the league becomes very significant.
UPDATE 6:39 p.m. ET: The Commanders corrected themselves later in the day, explaining that general counsel Norm Chirite, not Wright, is casting the votes at the meetings.