Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL who says he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, spoke to Washington Redskins players and coaches at a team meeting Saturday night and was a guest of owner Dan Snyder at the team’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
O’Neill, who is originally from Montana and is a Redskins fan, decided to reveal his identity in a series of interviews earlier this month. Several players took photos with O’Neill after the meeting Saturday night and posted them on social media, including quarterback Robert Griffin III, wide receiver Pierre Garçon and nose tackle Chris Baker.
“It was pretty cool,” said outside linebacker Ryan Kerrigan. “I mean, obviously, what he’s done, the way he’s sacrificed a lot of things in life for people like us and for our country’s betterment is awesome. It was really cool to meet him.”
It’s not uncommon for NFL teams to invite guest speakers to their team meetings the night before a game, but the Redskins do not do it regularly.
A reporter’s request to speak to O’Neill was declined by a Redskins spokesman, who said O’Neill was merely trying to enjoy the game as a fan.
Players said O’Neill spoke about the tenets of leadership and accountability and how what he learned during nearly two decades in the military can be applied to team sports.
O’Neill, who became a public speaker after leaving the Navy in 2012, revealed his identity only after it became a loosely guarded secret among top military leaders and several members of Congress.
He was one of the members of the unit that stormed bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. He also was among those who helped rescue those aboard the Maersk Alabama, which was overtaken by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean in 2009.
Griffin said he understood the parallels O’Neill made between military life and football, especially as the son of two Army sergeants.
“It’s almost exactly the same, it’s just we’re just not putting our lives on the line, per se, in the way that they are,” Griffin said. “We put our careers on the line. You see Trent [Williams] go down [injured] today, and that was disheartening for everybody, but [O’Neill] said, ’If you make a mistake, you own it. You own that mistake.’
“When things go right, it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. Everybody gets the credit. That’s why it took so long for it to come out that he was the one who shot him, because it doesn’t matter who shot him. We shot him. Who won? We won. And it’s the same when you lose.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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