Must Have

It took me two seconds to write Must Have.

And then the bot army of X took another two seconds to magically provide a stream of hyperlinks to any gullible fan.

So what kick-started this sudden urge to part ways with money?

Two feathers. Two feathers attached to the new Commanders ‘W’ on a long sleeve t-shirt worn by HC Dan Quinn at minicamp on the 11th of May.

As ever, when thinking of the old name, something was triggered inside the soul and stirred the emotions. I mean, hear me out.

Without a doubt, it was the correct thing to move away from the controversy of the Redskins name. That for me is a line drawn in the sand and clearly ‘Redskins’ will not come back under the new ownership group in D.C.

The name was changed for the right reasons, but the outpouring of Must Haves for a simple and non-official t-shirt comes from a section of the fanbase that isn’t just the diehards who will not accept time moves on.

My own politics are left of liberal, but the old logo and name still conjures up a magical time of Riggins, of Williams, of Monk and Green. As a kid, I was a Redskin without truly knowing the connotations. But even if I grew to understand the problematic nature of the name, I was/I am still a Redskin kid.

Is part of the problem that the change, when it did come, felt lightning quick (compared to the very drawn-out process) with inadequate time available to the fanbase to fully encompass the new way forward as a Commander and not a Skin?

99.9% of the current Washington fanbase were Redskins fans. We are very early into the change to Commanders, and Washington have yet to produce a winning team under the new moniker. Might winning as the Commanders go some ways as to acceptance?

They’ll be some who will read this and will simply respond Bad Name, Bad People who yearn for the Name. I do not have any beef with them, they are more than likely right in that approach.

But things that stir naturally are exactly that: a human reaction to missing something, that, even if the time was right to move on, clearly connect on a cellular level that isn’t always aligned to rhyme and reason.

Raise Hell? Still a nod to the past and one that will likely live on for some time to come.