The Washington Commanders fired one of their employees a day after a video surfaced of him making inappropriate comments about their players and fans, as well as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
On Wednesday, Rael Enteen, the now-former vice president of content for the Commanders, was suspended after comments he made in an apparent date with an undercover reporter for the O’Keefe Media Group were made public. Enteen said players on the team were homophobic, claimed Jones is racist and homophobic, and called Goodell a “$50 million puppet.”
“The language used in the video runs counter to our values at the Commanders organization,” the team said in a statement published to social media Wednesday. “We have suspended the employee pending an internal investigation and will reserve further comment at this time.”
Sportico has reached out to Enteen for comment via LinkedIn. The NFL declined to comment, referring Sportico to the Commanders statements.
On the video, Enteen told his “date” that half of the Commanders roster was full of “white religious” players who believed that God was against gay people, and that another group of players were “low-income African Americans that come from a community that is inherently very homophobic.” He blasted the NFL’s diversity efforts as performative, branded most fans as “high school-educated alcoholics” and disparaged the education of many players.
Enteen also said Goodell, who has been league commissioner since 2006, was not the real power in the seat but that it was Jones who acted as the NFL’s true leader. “I don’t think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people,” he said.
The video was produced by a media company run by James O’Keefe, who was part of the right-wing nonprofit group Project Veritas that made its name from undercover sting videos created and edited to embarrass news organizations and Democratic politicians. O’Keefe has faced civil suits and criminal charges over methods used in past videos.
The Enteen video is a reminder of the Commanders’ past controversies despite its new ownership. Under previous steward Dan Snyder, the Commanders organization was roiled by multiple investigations of sexual harassment along with a long-standing resistance by Snyder to change the franchise name from its previous moniker, considered by many to be a racial slur. (After two years as the “Washington Football Team,” the team took on the Commanders brand in 2022.)
The incendiary comments also harken back to the league’s own issues in addressing social justice, especially after players protested during the national anthem several years ago in a movement led by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
(This has been updated with a response from the NFL in the fourth paragraph.)
