The debate over the name of the Washington NFL franchise has reached the point where it’s so entrenched it has in many respects become overlooked and forgotten amid a full season of football games and other controversies that necessarily will resolve at some point before the end of the decade.
With the name of the Washington team, who knows when the simmer will overflow and forces action? For the other issues that have commanded the bulk of the off-field media and fan attention span -- from Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson to Greg Hardy -- the full boil has occurred and the mess will be cleaned up in a matter of months, not years. Throw in the reality that the Washington team’s poor performance has made the franchise an afterthought and the name controversy has become, in some respects, forgotten.
That all works to the benefit of the team, since the team is resisting change. It’s easier to resist change when those who had clamored for it have moved on, at least temporarily, to other things.
On Sunday, for example, Washington owner Daniel Snyder engaged in an extended luxury-suite photo op with lame-duck Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly during the game against the Cardinals at Arizona. The move occurred against the backdrop of protests outside the stadium regarding the name of the team. Inside, the presence of a man who (as demonstrated by Deadspin) is out of touch with his constituents on the Washington name and other issues really didn’t get the attention it deserved.
Via the Washington Post, Shelly claims he talked business with Snyder at the game, with the goal of expanding a licensing agreement that allows for Native American arts, crafts, and jewelry to be sold at FedEx Field. Of course, there are plenty of other ways business can be discussed with owner of an NFL team; discussing business for the three hours per week his team is, you know, playing doesn’t seem like the ideal time.
But it was and is the ideal time to slap a couple of hats bearing the team’s logo on the heads of the Navajo Nation president and his wife and to plant them in the front row of the owner’s box, a signal to anyone who sees the images that some of Snyder’s best friends are Native Americans who clearly have no quarrel with the team name or logo.
Regardless of the reality that many Native Americans clearly do.
For now, the 1-5 irrelevance of the team and the extreme relevance of so many other aspects of the NFL (including but not limited to a full slate of games stretching from Thursday to Monday through the end of the calendar year) has made things that would generate plenty of buzz in the offseason a footnote, at best. When it comes to the latest chapter in the potentially never ending debate about the name of the Washington team, the ploy from Snyder didn’t get nearly the attention it merited, or the attention Snyder wanted. Ultimately, it’s good for Snyder that the strategy went largely unnoticed on a national level.
