The easy decision for Dan Snyder was to fire Jay Gruden. The harder decision will be picking a replacement.
Not the 2019 interim replacement; former Raiders coach Bill Callahan gets the gig. But Callahan surely won’t be the guy, unless he somehow turns around quickly the mess that the franchise has become.
Snyder will soon know who he wants to hire in 2020, if he doesn’t alredy. The balance of the season could be all about trying to lay the foundation to hire that person.
It may not be that easy, and it definitely won’t be cheap. Any head-coaching candidate with options won’t be opting to go to Washington. Indeed, some head-coaching candidates without options may choose to wait a year or longer for a better one.
Hovering over the entire situation is team president Bruce Allen, who somehow escapes accountability for the performance of the team even though he’s ostensibly in charge of it. Some think Allen will stay at least until the team has a new stadium, but how can Allen finesse a new stadium if the team that will be playing in it is in shambles?
So maybe Snyder decides to aim high, to break open the billionaire’s piggybank and to offer top-of-market money to an A-plus list candidate. If he does that, however, the A-plus list candidate may want to nudge Allen completely out of the team or at a minimum away from the football operation. And that may be the thing Snyder needs to now do, if he ever hopes to turn the franchise he has owned for 20 years into what it was 30 years ago.
