A Change-Filled Offseason May Have Left the Washington Football Team in a Better Place

This team has spent so long weighed down by *gestures wildly at everything at the team facility* that it was impossible to imagine them rising.

The whole football prognosticating world expects the Washington Football Team to be awful this season—a reasonable assumption, since the team was demonstrably awful last season and has ranged from awful to mediocre for most of the quarter century prior. And I cannot point to many concrete football reasons to expect otherwise. Many of the players […]

by Matt Terl

As Ron Rivera Attempts a Culture Change in Washington, Thomas Davis Sr.’s Leadership Will Be Crucial

The most senior player on Washington’s roster is best suited to instill the Rivera way at the peer-to-peer level.

Players and coaches on the Washington Football Team have heard the joke: With everyone that head coach Ron Rivera brought to D.C. with him from his tenure in Carolina, the team’s next name might as well be the Washington Panthers. Rivera’s Panthers transplants include no fewer than 13 coaches, four players, a senior vice president, a […]

by Adam Zielonka

Losing College Football Is a Consequence of the Nation’s Failure to Contain the Pandemic

At the University of Maryland, players have been split on the decision to cancel the fall season.

The day after Greg DesRoches informed his future in-laws of his intention to propose to their daughter, he received a call from his soon-to-be father-in-law with a simple directive about the wedding. “He said, ‘Get your calendar out. Here’s the date. This is when it’s gonna happen,’” DesRoches remembers. Being a University of Maryland alumnus […]

by Kelyn Soong

Dan Snyder Put a Toxic Power Structure in Place That Allowed for Abuse

“I would go as far as to say it happened to almost every single woman who walked through the doors at R*dsk*ns Park.”

The two phone calls I received Thursday night began the exact same way—with tears. One came just after the Washington Post published a story detailing allegations by more than a dozen women about the sexual harassment and verbal abuse they faced while working for the Washington NFL team under Daniel Snyder‘s ownership. On the other […]

by Craig Hoffman

Native American Activists Fought Decades for This Moment

“I want Washington football fans to understand: This is not about political correctness.”

Credit Kevin Gover with not losing hope. At 65, he’s been fighting to change the local NFL team’s racist name for nearly half a century. He began speaking out in 1973 when, at age 18, he wrote a letter to the then-team owner Edward Bennett Williams opposing the derogatory moniker.  He never received a reply, and through the ensuing decades, […]

by Kelyn Soong

Tuskegee Airmen Non-Profit Would Welcome the Washington Red Tails

Those who protect the legacy of the storied World War II African American pilot squadron are keeping the “Red Tails” name on the table for Dan Snyder and the NFL team to pick.

Since the local NFL team announced it would review its racist team name earlier this month, one option has risen to the top as the odds-on favorite replacement: the Red Tails. And now that the team has officially begun the process to “retire” its outgoing name, the homage to the Tuskegee Airmen is officially in […]

by David Steele

Petulant Local Football Franchise Says It Will Change Its Name Eventually

The statement from the team uses the outgoing name seven times.

There were a lot of dramatic tweets following the Washington NFL team’s statement on the forthcoming re-branding exercise. Most of them featured some variation on “And there it is. The [OLD TEAM NAME] are no more.” Some were jubilant, some were devastated, and some were resigned. None were correct. Because the statement goes out of […]

by Matt Terl

On Second Thought, Washington Ocelots Has a Nice Ring to It

Because if you give people any angle to not change, they won’t.

I made a terrible mistake. While writing about the local NFL team’s potential new name, I argued for things that had a tie to the team’s past. I settled on Hogs, but I acknowledged that people were looking for a name that scans in the fight song (so two syllables), keeps the hashtag viable (so […]

by Matt Terl

Some New Names for Washington’s NFL Team

The current odds-on favorite, according to at least one sportsbook, is Redtails.

The Washington NFL squad needs a new name very badly, if only so that I can stop starting these columns with sentences that awkwardly cram in the phrase “the Washington NFL squad.” And for the first time, it looks like it’s really happening. After years of grimly weathering the heartfelt pleas of Native American activists […]

by Matt Terl

An NFL Name Change That Has Been a Long Time Coming

Dan Snyder’s upcoming “thorough review” of his team's name should be a mere formality. The only mystery remaining is what Snyder will soon call his team.

After more than 20 years of Dan Snyder’s ownership of Washington’s NFL franchise—what many of us have called his reign of error—he now seems on track to finally do the right thing.  The team’s announcement Friday that it will be conducting a “thorough review” on changing its name has been a long time coming and […]

by Leonard Shapiro

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