Our listing of new Washington Redskins nickname suggestions continues with….
Retrievers
Why it works:
Retrievers love fetching things, so of course that includes footballs. They’re a sporting dog used as a hunting aide, so that appeals to the many football fans who are also hunters, and everyone loves them.
Labradors have been the AKC’s most popular breed since 1991, and this would be a perfect tie-in for both a team dog and a team service dog.
One of the later team name options available in the Backyard Football video games was the Labrador Receivers.
Besides, they literally can play football – just see Buddy’s exploits for the Fernfield Timberwolves in Air Bud: Golden Receiver.
Furthermore, Retrievers of all breeds are extremely athletic, competing in everything from disc dog to agility to obedience to flyball, which sets quite a good precedent as far as establishing an organizational identity.
A logo is pretty easy – a smiling Labrador or Golden with a ball in his mouth, and colors could be the yellow-gold they have now, brown and black, covering the spectrum of common coat colors (A silver, pewter or charcoal gray could also be a nice addition as a trim color, thus representing the rare fourth color of Lab, silver).
Why it doesn’t work:
The University of Maryland – Baltimore County, located in the nearby Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, has its Retrievers playing in the America East Conference. That could be too confusing, especially as their colors are yellow and black.
True, UMBC’s Retrievers are named after the Chesapeake Bay breed, not the Labrador, but it would be very similar.
Really, this is the only reason we can think of not to go in this direction.