It is not often that a former executive of a team accuses their bosses of cheating but that’s exactly what ex-Cardinals VP Terry McDonough accused his boss, Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill of doing.
Earlier this year in early April, McDonough filed an arbitration claim against his former employer accusing Bidwill of gross misconduct, including cheating, discrimination and harassment according to ESPN.
McDonough maintained that both he and former Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks were left with no choice but to follow Bidwill’s plan to use burner phones to communicate with former Arizona general manager Steve Keim while Keim was serving a five-week suspension after pleading guilty to extreme DUI in Arizona.
McDonough said he still has the phone, which he said contains the evidence of the cheating scandal, as well as additional documentation.
Obviously the Cardinals denied the claims and it’s been pretty quiet since then.
That was until today when former head coach and current 49ers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks testified.
Wilks reportedly confirmed McDonough’s claims during his testimony saying that he, McDonough, and other team execs were given phones to communicate with Keim during his suspension and also gave new info that wasn’t previously discussed.
Wilks testified that Bidwill initially ordered Wilks and others to have “no communication” with Keim following his guilty plea and suspension.
But Wilks said former Cardinals vice president of football administration Mike Disner gave him a burner phone sometime between July 18 and July 20. Wilks said Disner told him that the two of them, along with Keim, McDonough and Matt Caracciolo, the team’s vice president of football operations and facilities, received burner phones. He said Disner showed him how his phone had been preloaded with “everybody’s initials” and phone numbers. Bidwill himself used a burner phone to communicate with Keim, who had multiple burner phones, according to Wilks.
“With me being a first-year head coach, I felt uncomfortable from the beginning that I worked this hard to get to this plateau and this opportunity, and then I was presented with this situation with being unethical,” Wilks testified.
Keim and Wilks had one text exchange, when Keim asked how things were going at practice, according to Wilks’ testimony. “That was the only time I reached out to Mr. Keim,” Wilks said.
But Wilks testified that Keim and Disner communicated during Keim’s suspension to solidify a new deal with Johnson. The Cardinals announced Johnson’s contract on Sept. 8, 2018, less than three weeks after Keim returned from his suspension.
This is a very alarming claim and it only gets worse because it gets worse.
Wilks also testified to the claims of Bidwill belittling and/or bullying McDonough and others and the racist claims saying he had person experience with getting belittled in front of his 9 year old son.
Wilks said Bidwill had also berated him multiple times, including a postgame incident that occurred in front of Wilks’ 9-year-old son. He was driving home with his son after a game and called Bidwill, he said. “As soon as he picked up, it was just cuss words and how embarrassed he was about the game and can’t really, you know, bring friends or take anybody in the box,” Wilks said, adding that his son later asked him, “Daddy, why is that guy talking to you like that?”
McDonough has accused Bidwill of chastising him after he introduced three Black players to the owner during a tryout, telling McDonough, “Don’t ever do that again.” Wilks said he witnessed the interaction and heard Bidwill telling McDonough, “Don’t ever do that again,” but added, “I didn’t know exactly what it was pertaining to.”
These claims are especially concerning for the NFL because Bidwill is on the league’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and Social Justice Working Group and if these claims are true, there shouldn’t be anyone like this on a any kind of committee let alone one like that.
The Cardinals have continued to say these claims aren’t true.
