The front office in Washington is well into its search for a new general manager for the franchise, but as the 2021 offseason gets underway, team president Jason Wright is still neck-deep in the search for a new mascot and team name in D.C.
The first year going by the ‘Washington Football Team’ was a success, with Ron Rivera and his group of guys making it to the playoffs for the first time since 2015, but that doesn’t mean that things are going to stay the same. They might, of course — leadership has been open and honest about the fact that they may choose to keep WFT around, or maybe chance to the Washington Football Club — but Wright is still doing his due diligence and weighing every option when it comes to finding a new name.
When talking about the subject in an interview with 106.7 The Fan earlier this week, Wright did take a small step towards finding a name, simply by ruling a category of options out and wonderfully taking a small shot at a fellow NFC East team in the process.
“The other thing that we heard clearly is that something random would land poorly. We need something that’s connected to the history of the club or to the area or to something else that is meaningful to the fanbase already, meaningful to the area, etc,” Wright said, via NBC Sports Washington. “So picking some random-[expletive] bird mascot doesn’t feel like the right approach, at least from what we’ve seen so far.”
Oh, you mean like an Eagle…?
All shade aside, Wright also reiterated something that has already been made clear, but that will yet again lay a lot of fears to rest in the Washington fanbase; the colors are not changing.
“A few things are starting to become clear,” Wright said. “No. 1: Burgundy and gold should never change, period. That is a core aspect of the identity of this team and we know it is important from all this research as well to make sure we don’t feel like an expansion club and we’re tied to the history. We have to keep the burgundy and gold as a centerpiece to all of this.”
There still isn’t a timeline that has been put into place for announcing a new name or mascot, but Wright has said before that such things may not come until before the 2020 season.
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