Two teams that had surprising 2024 campaigns meet tonight to complete the second week of National Football League preseason action. The contest is scheduled for a 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time kickoff at FedExField and pits the Cincinnati Bengals against the Washington Commanders.

The Commanders surprising season last year was on the positive side. Rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels and first-year head coach Dan Quinn orchestrated a resurgence in Washington that vaulted the team from the cellar to the National Football Conference Championship Game.

Do you think ownership in the NFL makes a difference?

In 1999, Daniel Snyder parlayed money he had made from a highly successful business career into an $800 million purchase of the Washington Redskins. The 35-year-old had teamed with his sister with a loan from their parents in 1988 to open the marketing company Snyder Communication. In 1992, he expanded the company into telemarketing with a focus on the immigrant market and revenues rose from $2.7 million in 1991 to more than $9 million two years later.

In 1996, Snyder became the youngest CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company at age 32, and by 1998 his company had over 12,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenues.

Success, success, success.

The NFL unanimously approved the sale of the Redskins to Snyder in 1999 from legendary team owner Jack Kent Cooke. Snyder took his business skills and moneymaking history to the front office of the Washington football team with hopes of building on a proud tradition that included three recent Super Bowl wins while Joe Gibbs served as Head Coach.

Not only did Snyder’s management style not translate to football, but his personality also grated on staff and competitors nearly every step of the way. Snyder spent money on players that had success with other teams and tried to buy a winner while whiffing on draft after draft.

His style and lack of the acumen necessary to run a sports franchise caused more problems than a blind cab driver. While the team took a nosedive, only twice winning as many as ten games in a season, 2005 and 2012. Snyder’s Washington franchise won only two division titles this century, played in six postseason games while losing five of them, and landed in the cellar ten times during his tenure. Still, the value of the team rose with the rest of the NFL franchises.

Despite his mismanagement, Snyder did what he has always done, come out on top financially. He sold his interest in the Washington franchise in 2023 for more than $6 billion.

Under new ownership, last year the Redskins enjoyed their first season with more than ten wins since 1991, when they won 14 regular season games and capped the year with a victory over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI. Their 12 victories last year included more postseason wins, two, than Snyder had earned in his 24 years as owner of the team.

Yep, ownership makes a difference, and the Commanders are possibly just beginning a surge in success behind their brilliant young quarterback and new ownership.

Talking about ownership, it has made a difference in Cincinnati too. I recall as a young public relations person working in the NFL that the league staged our annual meetings at nice hotels and my Raiders and every other team arranged accommodations for their PR people in those hotels … except the Cincinnati Bengals. Their PR staff would join us in the nice hotels for our meetings after walking over from a nearby Motel 6 or other bargain hotel.

The Bengals organization has always done things on the cheap. The public relations meetings are just one example that run through the organization initially owned by Paul Brown and then following his death in 1991, by his son, Mike Brown. A 2022 survey listed Brown as one of the worst team owners in professional sports.

Today, the Bengals have one of the truly great quarterbacks in the game, Joe Burrow, and his college and pro primary target, Ja’Marr Chase. But wouldn’t you know that on the other side of the ball they are fumbling negotiations with one of the league’s premier defensive linemen, Trey Hendrickson. This week, the Bengals announced they are willing to hear trade options for the best defensive player on their roster.

Still, on the cheap, the Bengals have had some pretty good success while advancing to three Super Bowls since their first to complete the 1981 season. Unfortunately, the Bengals twice met Joe Montana and his San Francisco 49ers in losing their first two shots at a Vince Lombardi Trophy and came up short four years ago to the Los Angeles Rams in Roman Numeral LVI.

From a purely motivational perspective the Bengals should have the edge tonight. While the Commanders surprise season last year was an unexpected success, the Bengals 2024 campaign was a major disappointment. They missed the playoffs and finished the year behind the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC North Division.

The problem with backing the Bengals tonight is that they are on the road and facing a Commanders team that was slammed in their preseason opener last week by the New England Patriots, 48-18.

When the regular season starts, I would be looking for the Bengals to have a resurgence off of last year’s disappointment. Conversely, the Commanders fall into a trend that often finds a team that goes from last place to the playoffs having all sorts of trouble living up to expectations the following year.

That’s the regular season projections, but tonight’s game is recommended for viewing purposes only.