Although it's admittedly beginning to feel like we're beating a dead horse, the Redskins' name issue is evolving, albeit slowly, and there's now a new wrinkle to the debate.
Daniel Snyder has hired Frank Luntz, a conservative political consultant, to conduct a focus group assessing the general public's opinion of the NFL and the Washington Redskins, according to Think Progress. Snyder is presumably attempting to assess just where he stands from a PR perspective as he continues to hold that the Redskins will never be renamed.
The most important question on the survey is likely, "Which of the following best reflects your opinion of the NFL team name ‘Washington Redskins’?" Options include, "I find the name offensive and they should change it," "I don’t find the name offensive and they should keep it as is."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently addressed the issue, saying the name is, "a unifying force that stands for strength, courage, pride and respect." While calling a racial slur a force standing for "strength courage, pride and respect" may be a bit of a stretch, it'll be interesting to see if the statistics collected by the survey are released. If they're not released, it's possible the numbers didn't come out in Snyder's favor.
Stay tuned. Something tells me this story is far from finished.
