Washington D.C.’s National Football League franchise shocked the football world earlier this month when they finally relented on previous stances regarding their identity and agreed to retire both their controversial nickname and logo. Although the decision was a huge one, this all came about at an extremely rapid pace. The team announced that there was going to be an “internal review” of the nickname and logo on July 3 and they announced the retirement on July 13.
Washington would’ve been very hard-pressed to come up with a whole new nickname and set of logos, wordmarks and other bells and whistles in just ten days, so it makes sense that the team has announced today that they will be going with a bit of a placeholder look for the time being. Today, the team announced that they will officially be known as the “Washington Football Team” until they have a new nickname and logo.
The new placeholder name also came with what could be very generously described as a new “logo” of sorts and a brand new typeface and wordmark to go with the placeholder look. The team has started using the “W” in their new “Washington” wordmark as an icon on their social media platforms, so it would be safe to assume that that will be used as a placeholder logo going forward. However, the new wordmark has been the most prominently displayed facet of the team’s temporary look. Either way, this is all a very patchwork situation for the Washington Football Team and their temporary identity reflects that.
While the team will be hanging on to their iconic color scheme of burgundy, gold and white, they will have some new uniforms this season. It appears that they won’t just simply take the logo off of their helmets and scratch off the old nickname from their uniforms. Instead, the team will be wearing slightly tweaked jerseys and pants. While the helmets appear to be the same base combo of a burgundy shell with a gold facemask, they will be adorned with gold numbers on each side of the helmet. Additionally, the stripes on the helmet have been removed as well.
Aside from the obvious lack of anything related to the team’s previous nickname and logo, the little idiosyncrasies from previous uniforms have been toned down. The striping pattern on both the sleeve cuffs and the pants have been transformed from the double stripe that used to be present to simply being a generic sleeve cuff stripe and a generic football stripe on the pants.
From the name to the uniforms, it’s all a very generic look. However, this comes with the territory when a team is undergoing a complete revamp of your look with the season being not too far away from getting underway. If Washington chooses to undergo a serious and intensive creative process when it comes to figuring out what their new nickname and logo will be, then it’ll probably take the team a while to come up with an idea that is well-thought out and well-executed enough to serve as the logo for a NFL team.
That means that the placeholder identity for Washington is likely going to be around for the entirety of the season. I wouldn’t expect to see a new logo until the end of this season at the earliest and they could have the rest of their logo set and uniforms in time for the 2021 campaign. Washington is likely going to be inclined to keep the process extremely under wraps, since the team has a history of having to fight for trademarks.
Whether Washington chooses to expedite the process or take their time, patience will be needed from fans in both scenarios. There won’t be a new nickname or logos anytime soon and the team will actually have merchandise for the placeholder look for sale soon. The placeholder look won’t be around for a long time but for now (and especially when the team plans to have completely scrubbed all traces of the previous identity by September 13), it’s all that they have in order to prove that they are indeed the Washington Football Team.
I am an Atlanta-based writer who focuses on sports logos and uniforms. Ever since 2011, I have been blogging about logos and uniforms. In 2013, I started writing for
I am an Atlanta-based writer who focuses on sports logos and uniforms. Ever since 2011, I have been blogging about logos and uniforms. In 2013, I started writing for Chris Creamer’s sportslogos.net which is where I covered breaking news when it came to the world of uniform/logo unveilings. I have also contributed to Yardbarker in this area since 2016, which is where I give my opinions on which uniforms in each league are the best and worst, respectively. In addition to general sports logo and uniform talk, I also regularly write about baseball for SB Nation’s Talking Chop, SB Nation MLB, and Baseball Prospectus.