It remains to be seen whether the firestorm emanating from comments made by an 80-year-old basketball owner will affect the 81-year-old name of a football team. But the Donald Sterling situation provided former Redskins linebacker London Fletcher a context for sharing his views about whether a change should be made.
“I played in Washington for seven years and the first six I didn’t really pay that much attention to it until this past offseason when more groups started coming out and talking about the Redskins name,” Fletcher said on Tuesday’s edition of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN. “I started looking at it and doing a little bit of research on it and I started to feel a little bit uneasy about it; I spoke to our G.M. Bruce Allen about it.”
So what did Fletcher tell Allen?
“I told him Mr. Snyder should go and speak with Native Americans to get a true understanding of how they feel about the Redskin name and if it was offensive,” Fletcher said. “I wanted Mr. Snyder to go out and talk to them because he’s the one that is ultimately going to make the decision. It’s his football team and he’s the one who’s been adamant that he’s not going to change the name, but I think if he goes and has some conversations maybe he might look at it a little different.”
To date, Snyder has yet to provide any indication that he’d ever change his mind about changing the name. He could be changing his tune if/when the winds of change that blew Donald Sterling’s house down swirl toward D.C.