ESPN NFL and Monday Night Football analyst Louis Riddick was in the mix for several general manager openings during this offseason. Riddick’s analysis and high profile on TV make him a popular front-office candidate, but he’s also appealing because of the background that informs his insight.
Prior to joining ESPN, Riddick worked in the scouting and pro personnel departments for the Washington Football Team and Philadelphia Eagles. (That executive career followed playing eight seasons as a safety in the NFL.) And those days in Washington were the basis for a story Riddick shared with Pablo Torre this week on the ESPN Daily podcast.
While talking about Tom Brady, who’s so successful that Aston Martin once designed a car for him, Riddick shared his own story involving the luxury British sports car. As it turns out, Riddick was the caretaker of a brand-new V12 Vanquish Aston Martin for a few days in the mid-2000s. He gained possession of the car after beating Washington team owner Dan Snyder in a game of racquetball.
Here’s a clip:
ESPN’s Louis Riddick recalls the time he won Dan Snyder’s Aston Martin in a game of racquetball: pic.twitter.com/dJdFAUpkdM
— Clips & Quips (@Clipselberry) March 19, 2021
“I used to whup him pretty good,” Riddick recalled. “And I used to talk to [Snyder], like ‘Are you gonna challenge me today or what? Is this gonna be a game? I’m getting bored with you.’
“He goes, ‘If you can shut me out’ — he had just bought the new V12 Vanquish Aston Martin, brand-new — ‘If you can shut me out, I’ll let you take that home.’ I was like, ‘Deal!’ Pablo, I went down there to the racquetball courts and was like, “Bam, bam, bam bam!’ 11-nothing. Boom. Just like that. And he was pissed. PISSED.”
Riddick thought Snyder would welch on his bet when a couple weeks went by and nothing happened. But the Football Team owner finally paid up and gave him the keys to the Aston Martin.
“If you scratch it,” said Snyder, “I’ll be commandeering your salary forever.”
A key thing to remember, however, is that Riddick didn’t win total possession of the car. He got to use it for three days. But that was enough time to drive it home, get the neighbors talking, and impress his wife. Riddick was also the talk at team headquarters, driving the owner’s car and parking in his personal space.
With the Aston Martin being known as James Bond’s preferred automobile, Torre said he had to Photoshop Riddick into a James Bond image. We don’t know if he did it, but tried to do our best with that for this post.
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