Commanders suspend employee who says NFL fakes DEI ‘for the sake of good publicity’

The Washington Commanders have suspended an employee for telling an undercover “reporter” that the team’s players are anti-gay, that Jerry Jones is anti-gay and racist, and that the NFL’s social-justice initiatives are “performative.”

Sounds like they suspended the guy, Rael Enteen, the vice president of content for the Commanders front office, for letting out some uncomfortable truths.

“The language used in the video runs counter to our values at the Commanders organization,” a Commanders spokesperson said in a statement. “We have suspended the employee pending an investigation and will reserve further comment at this time.”

It’s important to note that the undercover “reporter” works for the O’Keefe Media Group, the new project of the widely discredited James O’Keefe, who has a history of producing deceptively edited videos that attack mainstream news organizations, Democratic politicians and staffers, and progressive political and advocacy groups.

You have to wonder about the editorial decision to go after a low-man-on-the-totem pole like a vice president of content for an objectively awful NFL team – awful on the field, awful in the way it is run, and in its relations with the local community and its fan base.

According to the reporting on this that I have come across, the undercover “reporter” from the O’Keefe Media Group used a dating app to set up dates with Enteen, and met with him twice at D.C.-area restaurants.

What Enteen appears to have said on the dates – I’m hedging on what may have actually been said, because the O’Keefe folks have a reputation for doctoring videos, so, take what you get from anything the guy touches with a grain of salt – would not exactly be all that revealing in the way that I’d assume O’Keefe would want.

To wit, Enteen, if we’re to believe the video cuts, offered a biting critical comment about the NFL’s social-justice initiatives.

“It’s not done out of the goodness of their heart. It’s done because George Floyd changed the game. … It’s to make as much money as possible. The NFL cares about the bottom line, like any corporation, above all else,” Enteen reportedly said, reportedly then adding that because the NFL makes so much money, “they can faux-prioritize DEI for the sake of good publicity.”

If there’s a “gotcha” here, it’s not where O’Keefe normally scores his points – taking down a TV news personality, a politician, a big-name progressive group, for giving up some secret about how liberals don’t really practice what they preach, or some such nonsense.

If anything, the reveal here is, people who should know, because they work with them, think NFL players and owners are bigots, and that the league only pretends to care about being inclusive because it thinks it can make money without having to actually be inclusive.

I mean, O’Keefe, to his credit, did get an anonymous front-office guy suspended from his job, so, there’s that.

Washington Commanders suspend employee over DEI comments

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