PHILADELPHIA — The NFL is still investigating Philadelphia Eagles chief security officer Dom DiSandro over comments former Eagles linebacker Emmanuel Acho made on his Speakeasy podcast in early August, longtime Eagles reporter Derrick Gunn reported Wednesday.
Acho played for three NFL teams and “never mentioned a name,” Gunn wrote on X. According to Gunn, it has been widely speculated that Acho was referring to DiSandro, who is known around Philadelphia as “Big Dom.” The league has not publicly confirmed the investigation.
Emmanuel Acho’s Account on the Speakeasy Podcast
On Thursday, ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio revisited the account Acho gave on the podcast. Acho told the story without naming the franchise, saying that because he “played for three,” listeners could not know which one it was. The crash he described was a rear-end collision, and his car was the one that hit the other.
“I [contacted] one of our security people,” Acho said. “He says, ‘Acho, when the cop shows up, send the cop away. I’m going to send you another cop. And that other cop is going to say it wasn’t your fault. It was their fault.’ I was like, ‘Wait, they do that?’”
A second officer did come to the scene, Acho said, and that officer found the other driver at fault. Once the other driver learned where he played, according to Acho, she claimed that she and her daughter had been injured.
“Our head of security had to offer them two home tickets plus signed jerseys,” Acho explained, “and then were like, ‘Oh, no, we’re fine.’”
During training camp, the San Francisco 49ers waited 11 days to announce that coach Kyle Shanahan had been hurt in a July 14 crash in Palo Alto, Calif. The crash left him with a concussion and a broken nose, ribs, and left hand. Collision data that Palo Alto police sent to a state database listed the other driver, a 21-year-old woman, at fault.
On July 28, Shanahan told reporters that he caused the crash. Palo Alto police said in a statement that a clerical error in the state report was being corrected. Jeremy Jones, the 49ers’ vice president of security operations, also attributed the inaccurate version to a clerical error. Florio wrote that the twist is what led Acho to bring up his own crash on Speakeasy.
Born in Dallas, Acho played at St. Mark’s School of Texas and then played linebacker for the Texas Longhorns from 2008 to 2011. The Cleveland Browns drafted him in the sixth round, 204th overall, in 2012 and placed him on injured reserve that August.
Cleveland traded Acho to Philadelphia on April 11, 2013. The Eagles waived him Sept. 2, 2013, and the New York Giants had him on their practice squad from Sept. 11 until Oct. 21, when Philadelphia signed him again. All 20 of his regular-season games, including 2 starts, came with the Eagles in 2013 and 2014. He made 33 tackles in those games. Philadelphia waived him for the final time on Nov. 25, 2015.
Dom DiSandro’s 2023 Sideline Ban Started Against The Dallas Cowboys
DiSandro joined the Eagles in 1999 and has been the team’s chief security officer and a senior adviser to general manager Howie Roseman since 2011. In 2024, the Eagles added director of gameday coaching operations to his title.
On Dec. 3, 2023, DiSandro and 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw were both ejected after a third-quarter confrontation along the Philadelphia sideline. The 49ers won that game 42-19 at Lincoln Financial Field. Greenlaw was later fined $10,927 for an unnecessary roughness penalty on the play.
Six days later, the league barred DiSandro from the sideline for the Eagles’ Dec. 10 game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. Dallas won that game 33-13. The restriction still allowed him to travel to Arlington and handle his other duties that week.
The Associated Press reported on Dec. 16, 2023, that DiSandro had been banned from the sideline for the rest of the regular season. Six days after that, a person familiar with the decision told the AP that the league had denied his appeal of the ban and a $100,000 fine, and that the Eagles had paid the fine. DiSandro was allowed back on the sideline for the playoffs.
Asante Samuel, a four-time Pro Bowl cornerback, played for the Eagles from 2008 to 2011. On Wednesday, he pinned the investigation on Acho in a post on X.
“Like I said before, watch who you do business with,” Samuel wrote. “We have an investigation going on because fool is dying for attention and a gossip queen smfh.”
Florio wrote that if the league is investigating DiSandro, it should be looking at the Browns and Giants too, along with every team’s head of security. He compared the situation to the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, in which he wrote that the league punished the one team it caught while other teams were doing similar things.
The Eagles open the regular season Sunday against the Washington Commanders at Lincoln Financial Field, with kickoff at 3:25 p.m. CT on Fox. Philadelphia hosts the Cowboys on Oct. 26 at 7:15 p.m. CT on ESPN, and Dallas hosts the Eagles on Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, at 3:30 p.m. CT on Fox.
