Publicly, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters that he wants the league’s owners to reserve judgment on Commanders owner Daniel Snyder until the pending Mary Jo White investigation is done. Privately, that message was sent to the owners by NFL general counsel Jeff Pash.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Pash slammed the door on any Snyder discussion during the owners-only session at Tuesday’s league meeting. It was, in the assessment of the source, the direct result of Colts owner Jim Irsay’s public comments regarding Snyder from this afternoon.
Pash urged the owners to exercise patience and restraint, explaining that they’d want the same treatment if they were facing a similar situation.
It’s a smart approach. With Snyder surely considering all legal options, anything said in that session would become discoverable evidence in court -- even if they asked Tanya Snyder to exit the session so that the matter could be discussed without her there to hear whatever was said. If/when litigation happens, the owners would be grilled about who said what, to whom.
The source also predicted that, if Irsay hadn’t said what he said to reporters, he definitely would have made those comments in the room, sparking a Snyder-related conversation. The source believes that Irsay’s comments directly led to Pash’s effort to short-circuit any discussion of Snyder among the owners.
Last year, Pash became directly implicated in the aftermath of Beth Wilkinson’s investigation regarding Snyder, after someone leaked emails exchanged by Pash and former Commanders president Bruce Allen.