While Washington owner Daniel Snyder has insisted his club will “never” abandon the Redskins name, the chorus of those who find the moniker thoroughly unacceptable continues to increase in volume. Shutdown Corner’s Jay Busbee writes that Sports Illustrated’s Peter King-helmed Monday Morning Quarterback site shall in the future, refer to the franchise as, “Washington’s football team”. Or something like that.
Slate made news a few weeks ago by noting that it wouldn’t refer to the Redskins by name. But that’s a different media outlet, one with little reason to cover an NFL team. MMQB isn’t in the belly of the beast, it IS the beast, part of the media machine that keeps the NFL atop the sports news cycle every minute of every hour of every day. If a site with the imprimatur of King, one of the most established voices in the NFL, can make this change, it sends a definitive signal to the team, the league and to fans: it’s time to take a hard look at this name.
Regardless of what team owner Daniel Snyder and a vocal group of pro-Redskins-name fans hope, wish or believe, the name issue’s coming to a head. Somebody sometime soon is going to ask Robert Griffin III, point-blank, if he supports the use of the name “Redskins.” And the way he answers will determine the shape of this story for the immediate future. If he thinks the name should go, it’ll eventually go. And if he thinks it should stay? Then Snyder has all the court-of-public-opinion weight he needs to fend off any critics.