Our quixotic crusade to change the name of Washington’s NFL team by refusing to use it has provoked the expected fusillade of derision and fulmination. But it’s also attracting allies.
Yesterday afternoon, Franklin Foer, the editor of The New Republic, announced via Twitter that his magazine would stop using Washington’s official name, too.
And this morning, Mother Jones enlisted its legions in the anti-Snyder army, altering its style guide to ban the name. The name, wrote MoJo, “is an absolute embarrassment—for the NFL, for the nation’s capital, and for nanny-underpayer/owner Dan Snyder.” Mother Jones plans to refer to the team as the “Washington [Redacted].”
A Washington Post spokeswoman told a Politico reporter the paper wouldn’t change its naming policy, and I’m not expecting ringing endorsements from ESPN or Fox, either. But Slate, the New Republic, Mother Jones—that’s a good start on the “thought-leader magazine” category so feared by NFL team owners. If we could get the Atlantic and The New Yorker on board—why Dan Snyder wouldn’t be able to show his face at Georgetown cocktail parties!
In other news, Washington’s team won its first preseason game last night, but Robert Griffin didn’t play.
