Maybe it's because i'm a Brit...but I actually kind of dig the new temporary name.
Over here we're used to our teams (Cricket, Soccer, Rugby etc) only going by the city name generally, with the occassional 'United' or 'City' thrown in.
Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Birmingham City FC, Aston Villa FC, etc... So for me, this seems like normal almost.
Whatever they rename the team moving forwards, it's going to sound weird. In some ways I'm happier if they just go by simply Washington.
(The only issue I have is a quibble. I wish they'd gone with 'Washington Football Club' rather than 'Team' - but again, that's just a British thing!)
I like we get to keep the colours. The helmet design doesn't bother me, it's changed over the years anyway (The spear head, the feather stripe, the R, the curved feathers etc) so to me it's never been particularly sacred.
The whole thing to me actually seems very Ron Rivera. It feels like this was his decision. He seems like a straight, no nonsense kind of man, which I feel is what this franchise needs.
The name and the uniform design, feels to me like he had a conversation with Snyder and just said: "Enoughs enough, we just want to play football. So here's what we do. Park the name shit, we play as simply Washington. And keep the uniforms, that's our identity. And we'll keep it simple and old school on the helmets and just put the player numbers there. All this crap is just detracting from us just playing football."
Honestly, it feels already to me like this team is forging a new identity under Rivera. It feels like we're about to have a tough nosed, no nonsense, defensive minded identity when we hit the field. More and more I'm of the opinion that this team has been held back from it's ultimate potential. We started to see progress on this front even last year when Gruden and Allen were out, and Bill Callahan took over temporarily. He may not have been the right man for the job nexessarily, but he did start to establish a certain tone.
I'm catiously optimistic about this year... Not saying we'll win the Superbowl, but I think we may exceed expectations. I think our players are young, hungry and disciplined for once. We have a new coach who feels like he's firmly in charge of this organisation for once. Hopefully Snyder will keep busy on his name search and leave the football to the football guys.
I'm a big F1 fan... and this reminds me a little of the Brawn year.
For those not versed in F1... Honda decided to pull out of F1, leaving their team in the lurch. Ross Brawn (a highly regarded Technical Director), was confident the team had potential, so he bought it and branded it with his name. Brawn F1. They had no sponsors and the drivers drove pretty much for free. They surprised everyone, winning the championship that year. The next year they team was bought by Mercedes and the rest is history. The Brawn team was a one year deal, and made history.
Now I don't think this 'Washington' year will be the same, but I do have a sneaky feeling we may look back on this year as a sneaky turning point for the Franchise in years to come.
Or maybe that's just the optimist in me again! LOL