What needed saying

 Maybe it took someone whose skeletons are out and about to call a bully's bluff. Maybe it took a flawed and occasionally strange man to say what needed saying when no one else had the sack to do so.

Because what could Daniel Snyder. the mobster who runs the Washington Commanders, have on Jim Irsay that we all don't have?

Irsay's skeletons came out of the closet in the skinny hours of a March night eight years ago, when the cops pulled him over in Carmel and charged him with OWI.  No one but Irsay will ever know if this was a cry for help, but it certainly functioned as one.

Fast forward all these years later, and here was Irsay, flaws a matter of public record now, telling the world there was merit to removing Snyder as an NFL owner. You didn't hear Jerry Jones saying that -- tough old Jerry, telling Robert Kraft "don't f*** with me" after voting no to Roger Goodell's new contract, the only owner to do so. 

Well. Tough ol' Jerry hid under his bed when the story broke that Snyder allegedly had hired private investigators to dig up dirt on fellow owners, including Jones himself. Jerry's response was heck, no, he and Snyder didn't have any issues between them. They were still best buds.

Kraft didn't say anything either, in the wake of the latest allegations about Snyder. Nor did any other owner. Perhaps that was decorum; more likely they were all wondering if Snyder did hire snoops, and who they were snooping on, and what they might find.

Everyone's got secrets, after all. Everyone's got skeletons.

Only Irsay, who faced his down eight years ago, decided "To hell with this guy and his threats. Bring it on."

Likely that's not how he phrased it, of course, but that's the substantive gist. Snyder's mouthpieces immediately fired back, calling Irsay's  comments "highly inappropriate, but not surprising", an apparent shot at Irsay's eccentricities. Eh, guy's a kook, what do you expect? He doesn't speak for anyone but his own kooky self.

Except he does, undoubtedly. He's just the only one who'll actually speak.

"The imperfect man pitched a perfect game," New York sportswriter Dick Young once wrote, on the occasion of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

Well. This time, the imperfect man spoke the perfect words.