Let’s cut the bullshyte.
The name “The Washington Football Team,” as “A Newspaper in Seattle” used to call it, wasn’t retired; it faded gently into that good night. A lousy woke ideology mugged it in broad daylight despite a fanatic following with decades of history. Corporations, along with a failing culture of morality, decided that Redskins was too vile and too racist to remain.
Those decision-makers never bought tickets or watched a single snap, yet rode a woke wave of condescension and used Daniel Snyder’s sins as a tool for change.
Although it’s only for a short period, the moniker may be making an overdue comeback.
The Mascot That Must Not Be Named
Five years ago, an 88-year-old football franchise fell under pressure from corporate sponsors who demanded change. As quickly as flipping a switch, the team folded.
Their decision was so sudden that they didn’t have a Plan B ready, so they used genuine creativity and used the Washington Football Team as a placeholder. A name so creative that among its fan base, it flew like a lead zeppelin.
They decided on the name Commanders. Honestly, it really isn’t that bad of a team name. However, it doesn’t have any soul or edge. It’s like the summer intern found it while looking at the index of a military surplus catalog.
Nobody asked for it. Native Americans weren’t demanding change; fans hated it. Unfortunately, people who made those decisions didn’t really care; all they wanted was compliance.
Nobody Asked the Right People
Let’s revisit the polls.
In 2004 and again in 2016, nine out of ten self-identified Native Americans told pollsters they weren’t offended by the name “Redskins.” That’s not a typo: 90%. It’s hard to deny reality, but if some people try hard enough, they can create their own.
And even when new polls tried to shift the language, using “harmful” and “problematic” instead of “offended,” the results barely changed. Because those polls were inconvenient, they get buried under that new reality. But the truth? The outcry didn’t come from reservations. It came from white guilt in glass towers.
From people who turn Native culture into mascots of their own activism. Who never met a tribe they couldn’t talk over.
Then Came the Eraser
Once the name went, everything else started unraveling. The iconic logo, modeled in part after Two Guns White Calf, a Blackfeet chief, is no longer in use. The uniforms? Stripped. The franchise’s identity was gutted and replaced with something that couldn’t rattle a toddler.
But here’s the trick: the name never stopped mattering. People still wore the jerseys. Still shouted it from tailgates. Still whispered it like a prayer. You don’t kill history with a press release.
So when the new ownership recently unveiled throwback uniforms, the Super Bowl-era look, right down to the helmet’s grit and color scheme, it didn’t feel like a marketing stunt.
It felt like a confession.
A Quiet Return, Loud With Meaning
They weren’t called Redskins yet. But they didn’t have to. The symbolism screamed through the screen.
For three games this season — November 2, November 30, and Christmas Day — the burgundy and white uniforms return to their old-school helmets. The design wasn’t just familiar. It was intentional. And suddenly, the conversation changed from “What was lost?” to “What might come back?”
It grew louder when President Donald Trump jumped in, speaking loudly, directly, and unapologetically. “I wouldn’t have changed it,” he said. “Bring back the Redskins.” Trump’s instincts on cultural sentiments are usually dead-on, especially with working-class fans and forgotten traditions.
And just like that, the name that must not be spoken started slipping back into everyday conversation.
Without trigger warnings or apologies.
The Problem With Slogans
This entire mess began because slogans replaced thought. “Nobody is your mascot.” “Words are violence.” “Representation must come with permission slips.”
What nonsense.
The Redskins weren’t caricatures. They were warriors. That was the whole point. Power. Grit. Legacy. It was a name worn with pride, not assigned with scorn.
Even now, when you talk to fans, old-timers, blue-collar diehards who remember Gibbs, Riggins, and The Hogs, the name comes up like muscle memory. They say it quietly, but they say it. And not out of spite. Out of reverence. She’s hardly an old-timer, but my wife remains a diehard ‘Skins fan. Between the Guardians of Cleveland and the Commanders of Washington, she gets headaches from the eye rolls.
Try telling her that she’s racist. See how that goes.
Just give me a heads-up so I don’t have to witness what happens next.
Culture Doesn’t Pivot That Easily
This is what the erasers never understood. You can’t steamroll cultural memory by trying to delete decades of pride with a memo from HR or a threat from a shoe company. People remember. They hold on. They pass it down.
And the more you tell them to forget, the more stubborn they become.
Now, with lawsuits piling up from Native American groups like the Native American Guardians Association in 2023, we’re seeing the fight flip. They say erasing names like Redskins is actually the erasure of Indigenous culture, not its defense. It denies real tribes the right to be honored in public life.
Hard to argue with that when tribal leaders are saying it themselves.
Final Thoughts
What we’re watching isn’t just a franchise inching toward a rebrand. It’s a cultural boomerang. The kind that only returns after the air’s clear, the noise fades, and after the crowds that demanded change forget what they were yelling about in the first place, because the next urgent cause offended maybe 2% of the population, so the rest of the country learned its lesson.
The Redskins were never just a name; they were part of the American tapestry: Messy, strong, imperfect, proud. The sort of thing that used to bind people together before identity became a business model.
Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it doesn’t stick. But maybe, just maybe, this time, the name gets to stand without apology.
Because not everything worth keeping has to be explained.
Some things just matter.
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