It’s one thing for those outside the organization to cite the dysfunction within the Washington Commanders. It’s quite another when someone pulls back the curtain on the dysfunction.
Alex Smith was with Washington for three seasons, from 2018-20, when the team went 17-31 and made one postseason appearance.
“It’s tough. I think you’ve got to try to eliminate the noise there. There’s a lot of noise,” Smith said on The Rich Eisen Show this week when asked what advice he would give Carson Wentz. “There’s a lot of distractions — that entire organization, everything surrounding it — and, obviously, deservedly. It’s been flawed the last 20 years. There’s a lot of stuff going on there, a lot of distractions, and it makes it difficult to kind of focus in on the football.”
This is nothing new.
Dan Synder, 57, bought the team in May 1999. Since then, the Commanders are 156-212-1 in the regular season and 2-6 in the postseason with five winning seasons and six postseason appearances. Washington last won the Super Bowl in 1991.
Eisen asked Smith whether everything that happens within the organization affects the team on the field.
“How could it not?” Smith asked. “All the stuff there with just the entire organization from ownership down, head coaching and G.M., there’s been historically a lot of drama there. It’s a big market, obviously, the capital and a lot going on, and that organization is a really storied franchise and there’s a lot of turmoil and a lot of distractions.
“So to say that the stuff going on in the building doesn’t infiltrate the locker room or out on the field would be crazy. That’s what happens everywhere. I think that’s what great organizations eliminate and the bad ones have a hard time with. All that noise creeps into the building. Yeah, it does. It does affect the product on the field.”
There is absolutely nothing anyone within the organization can say to refute what Smith said. The record speaks for itself.
Coach Ron Rivera, the best thing the organization has going for it, said at the owners meetings this week that he is “tired” of being an easy target but concedes “the only way to fix it is winning and that’s the truth.”