Washington Football Team Exec Says There’s a ‘Pretty Good Chance’ Team Keeps Placeholder Name in 2021

Any hopes that the Washington Football Team would shift course and give themselves an actual name, suffered a crushing blow on Tuesday.

Team President Jason Wright told local television station WJLA that there’s a “pretty good chance” the team will keep their placeholder nickname for another season.

“There’s a pretty good chance we will be the Washington Football Team next season,” Wright said.

“I think next year is fast because of how the brand has to come together through uniforms, through approval processes through the league,” Wright explained on Tuesday.

“We could get there quicker, it’s actually pretty hard to get there that quickly because of all the steps that need to happen.”

The team dropped their 87-year-old nickname, the Redskins, after minority owners in the organization and major sponsors including FedEx and Pepsi, capitalized on a wave of cancel culture outrage and joined forces to force Owner Daniel Snyder to change the name.

As ESPN reports:

The controversy surrounding the name predated Snyder’s purchase of the team in May 1999. When Washington played in Super Bowl XXVI following the 1991 season, there were 2,000 protesters outside the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Jack Kent Cooke, the team owner at the time, said of any possible change: ‘There is not a single, solitary jot, tittle, whit chance in the world. I like the name, and it’s not a derogatory name.’

Snyder himself had said in 2013 that he would never change the name, and that the media could “put it in all caps.” Though, Snyder was eventually undone by a conflagration of forces that he clearly did not envision in 2013.

Now, the team has no name and it appears it won’t next year either.