Former Arizona Cardinals exec accuses team owner Michael Bidwell of cheating

The Arizona Cardinals decided to clean house this offseason, moving on from longtime general manager Steve Keim while also letting head coach Kliff Kingsbury go. With all of these changes, senior personnel executive Terry McDonough, who was with the team for ten seasons, was also let go.

Now, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN, McDonough is accusing team owner Michael Bidwell of gross misconduct, which in this case includes cheating, discrimination, and harassment. McDonough officially filed the arbitration suit against his former boss to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday.

The allegations make a collection of claims that paint Bidwell in a bad light. This includes the owner allegedly forcing McDonough and former head coach Steve Wilks to resort to using ‘burner’ phones to contact former GM Steve Keim when he was serving a five-week suspension for an ‘extreme DUI’ back in 2018.

In fact, McDonough says he still has the pre-paid phone, which contains all the evidence needed to prove cheating was taking place.

Yet, McDonough alleges that he wasn’t exactly on board with these communication plans from the very start, here’s a tidbit from his arbitration filing.

“In response to McDonough’s objection to the illicit burner phone scheme, Bidwill cursed at, berated, and formally reprimanded McDonough, and ultimately demoted him — irrevocably damaging the trajectory of McDonough’s 34-year career in the National Football League.”

He adds that coach Wilks also “objected and sought to avoid participation in a scheme hatched by Bidwell.” Yet, Bidwell then reportedly wrote McDonough up for insubordination.

His claim also adds Bidwell treated a Black employee and two pregnant women badly and “created an environment of fear for minority employees.” No further details were included on these incidents.

There was also an instance where the Cardinals tried to conduct an employee engagement survey with each of their employees, only to have Bidwell later peek at the results and cancel the arrangement altogether.

McDonough claims Bidwell’s “widespread workplace misconduct is significantly worse than the misbehavior” of former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. Of course, Sarver was suspended by the NBA for a year while being slapped with a $10 million fine before selling the franchise later on.

Arizona Cardinals release statement in response to claims

Of course, with allegations as serious as these, the Cardinals weren’t ready to admit their guilt. Instead, they are denying all claims made by McDonough and released a lengthy statement addressing the scandal.

“We are reluctantly obliged to provide a public response along with broader context for some disappointing and irresponsible actions by Terry McDonough. Claims he has made in an arbitration filing are wildly false, reckless, and an opportunistic ploy for financial gain.”
Arizona Cardinals external public relations adviser Jim McCarthy

As mentioned, this is only a small bit of their statement. Via Counterpointstrategies.com, the Cardinals go on to accuse McDonough of “disturbing allegations of extreme domestic violence” while stating how it “pains them to be forced into a position of exposing the details of Terry’s character.”

Chances are, this is far from the last we’ll hear about this curious situation between the Arizona Cardinals, team owner Michael Bidwell, and former team executive Terry McDonough.