The Redskins Are No More, Let’s Break Down Their Awkwardly-Worded Press Release

The Washington Redskins announced on Monday morning that they are “retiring” their team name Redskins with a press release that I think we should break down right now.

On July 3rd, we announced the commencement of a thorough review of the team’s name.

This statement will make it seem like it only took ten days to determine that calling their team a color + the word skin is probably a tad racially insensitive. Except the team has been around for 88 years.

That review has begun in earnest.

The fact that they felt the need to say this makes me start to doubt if the review had actually begun in earnest.

As part of this process, we want to keep our sponsors, fans and community apprised of our thinking as we go forward.

This is probably the most honest part of the entire press release: listing “sponsors” first. Because let’s be real, the Redskins were never looking to change their name until FedEx (the sponsor of their stadium) and Nike (the league sponsor of all team apparel) spoke out. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised the press release even included “fans and community.” In fact, this might be the most honest line in the history of press releases. You may not like that they listed it that way, but I actually respect the honesty. In fact, it would’ve been funnier if they left out “fans and community” altogether.

Today, we are announcing we will be retiring the Redskins name and logo upon completion of this review.

This has to be the most Dan Snyder way to announce this. They’re not “getting rid of” the name or even “moving on from” the name. They’re “retiring” it. So what does that mean exactly? Are they going to hang the name from the rafters? Add the name to their ring of honor? They going to have a halftime ceremony to commemorate it?

Dan Snyder and Coach Rivera are working closely to develop a new name and design approach that will enhance the standing of our proud, tradition rich franchise and inspire our sponsors, fans and community for the next 100 years.

Ah yes, best to leave the new name and design up to arguably the worst owner in sports and the head coach who literally just got there. This will probably go over as well as their first name went.

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In case the Dan and Ron need any suggestions, we came up with a few…