For the nation’s idiots, this is going to be a hill worth dying on, but it doesn’t really matter. The Washington area NFL team will be called something other than the “redskins” in our lifetime (probably within the next ten years.)
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has turned DeAngelo Hall into the voice of reason. The oft-fined cornerback conceded this week that the team “probably should” change its name.
“I think eventually they will change it,” Hall responded when asked about the team’s name during an appearance on FOX Sports’ “Keeping It Real With Mike Hill.”
Just imagine a team called the Heebs, or the Chinks, or the Whites and it is easy to see that the name is not going to make it. My suggestion is that they keep the logo and “traditions” of the team by going with the name of a tribe in the same way Florida’s Seminoles skirt the issue. The Powhatans doesn’t have much of a ring to it, but would probably be the most geographically accurate. Or they could follow William and Mary and simply go with the word “Tribe.” “Braves” is dicey and “Chiefs” is probably on its way out too eventually so why bother going there.
Greg Easterbrook has suggested that they keep the name, but change the mascot to a redskin potato. The way they’ve been playing that makes some sense, but it is too lawyerly a maneuver.
Anyway, it is a historical inevitability that it is going to change. The only real question is, how long they are going to let the nation’s idiots piss and moan about what disaster the change is going to be before it actually happens.