We had to wait all week for the bombshell story regarding the Washington Redskins, which reporters hinted at over the course of 72 hours.

It finally dropped last night at The Washington Post, and it centers on allegations from 15 former female employees, who say they were subjected to sexual harassment during their time within Dan Snyder’s organization.

The story itself is behind a paywall, so you can’t read it unless you’re a WAPO subscriber.

Here’s a blurb from ESPN that encapsulates who was involved in the alleged transgressions:

Among those accused of misconduct are former director of pro personnel Alex Santos and former assistant director of pro personnel Richard Mann II, as well as longtime radio play-by-play announcer and senior vice president Larry Michael. All three departed the organization within the past week.

Others named in the report are former president of business operations Dennis Greene and former chief operating officer Mitch Gershman, who, along with Michael, were considered part of Snyder’s “inner circle,” according to the Post.

There are no allegations against Snyder or former longtime general manager Bruce Allen, who was fired at the end of the 2019 season after 10 years with the franchise.

Michael is accused of making sexual comments about the appearance of female employees. Santos was accused by more than a half dozen people of also making inappropriate comments. The WAPO also obtained a text message revealing Mann and other colleagues talked about whether or not another employees breasts were real. Another guy, Dennis Greene, who left the organization in 2018 after the cheerleader photoshoot scandal, was mentioned in this story as somebody who asked sales personnel to wear revealing clothes and flirt with clients.

Of the 15 women in the story, only one spoke on the record, a former marketing coordinator named Emily Applegate. Others remained anonymous due to the existence of non-disclosure agreements.

Daniel Snyder was not specifically accused of harassment, though he’s mentioned in multiple passages in the story, like this one:

“While Applegate and others did not accuse Snyder of acting improperly with women, they blamed him for an understaffed human resources department and what they viewed as a sophomoric culture of verbal abuse among top executives that they believed played a role in how those executives treated their employees.

Snyder routinely belittled top executives, according to three former members of his executive staff, perhaps most intensely Greene, the former sales executive, whom Snyder mocked for having been a male cheerleader in college. After one executive staff meeting, according to one former employee, Greene said Snyder had ordered him to do cartwheels for their entertainment.”

I think the common response to this story is that nobody is really truly surprised. Rich white men being lecherous assholes? What a shock!

But we wouldn’t sweep something under the rug, not because the behavior is common. It’s still improper and demeaning and humiliating, and the clearly the Redskins should be changing more than their name moving forward. They should just clean house and start from scratch inside that entire operation. Ron Rivera is the right guy to lead the rebuild both on and off the field. Just give him the keys to the car.

As we advance the story, the real question is what happens to Dan Snyder. He’s not directly accused of sexual harassment, nor would there appear to be hard evidence proving that he said or did anything inappropriate. You could certainly make the case for gross negligence, and, combined with his stance on the name change, perhaps pen a narrative that he’s just not worth the trouble anymore. Maybe the NFL pulls rank here and tells him to sell the team and/or GTFOH. Maybe that’s where we’re headed as his approval rating continues to tank.

And it’s easy to laugh about it as Eagles fans, and joke about the dumpster fire that the Washington football team has become, but think about how we’d feel if this story was written about the Birds instead. We’d all be embarrassed that a team that means so much and represents this city and this region was allowing this type of behavior to go unpunished for years. If anything, we should be extra proud that Jeffrey Lurie and company have run a clean and respectable organization for so many years. Maybe the Washington situation is a wake up call to toxic sports types everywhere, who take “locker room talk” out of the locker room in 2020.

So no, it shouldn’t surprise anybody, but it’s just another example of how many assholes continue to say and do inappropriate things without repercussion, not until the victims find the courage to band together and speak out.