The team formerly known as the Washington Redskins will now simply be the “Washington Football Team” until further notice, ESPN reported. The organization will immediately begin the process of removing its former name and imagery from its jerseys, helmets and merchandise while the process of selecting a permanent new name continues.
ESPN NFL analyst Adam Schefter broke the news on Twitter on Thursday, noting that the name change is not permanent.
Effective immediately, Washington will call itself the “Washington Football Team”, pending adoption of a new name, sources tell ESPN.
This is not a final renaming and rebranding for team; this is the name it wants to use until pending adoption of a new name in the future. pic.twitter.com/sBs0Uo0ICm
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 23, 2020
In a series of follow-up tweets, Schefter explained that the team hopes to have the name and rendering of a Native American purged from all of its merchandise, uniforms, and physical and digital spaces — in other words, its field, practices facilities, and online presence — within 50 days. Further, it hopes to have its new home uniforms ready by the time the squad opens up its season when it hosts the Eagles for its home opener in Week 1. The team’s Week 2 game will be on the road, and the organization hopes to have its new road uniforms ready by then.
The organization will continue to use the traditional gold and burgundy color scheme on its uniforms, helmets, physical and digital spaces, and merchandise. Where the image of a Native American in a headdress once emblazoned the helmets, instead the players’ uniform numbers will appear.
All of this is a temporary placeholder measure that will be in play while the organization tries to land on a new name.
“[the team] will be seeking the feedback of players, alumni, fans, sponsors and the community for the new team name it will use at some point in the future, per sources,” Schefter tweeted.
The team did not give a timeline for when its new name will be decided upon and revealed.
As reported at the time by The Inquisitr , this week an internet rumor suggested that the team was looking at the “Sentinels.” That’s because a Reddit user found out that the same entity that runs the website “Redskins.com” had registered the domain “DCSentinels.com.”
However, there are two problems with that rumor: the first is that a domain-name filing is, as writer Frank Schwab put it, “[not] always an accurate way of solving puzzles like this.” The second is that the Washington Sentinels was the name of a fictitious team in the 2000 Keanu Reeves comedy The Replacements ; if the Redskins were to use that as their new name, they would forever be associated with a mediocre comedy film.
