While awaiting a permanent name change to come at some point in the future, the Washington Redskins will be simply referred to as the Washington Football Team for the upcoming NFL season. In recent months, calls for the team to change their controversial name has been increasing, eventually reaching the point where sponsors began to withdraw their support. It has since been announced that the Washington team was officially dropping the "Redskins" part of their name, but no new name was revealed as a replacement name for the team has not yet been officially decided upon.

With time running out until the NFL's fall season begins, the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins were essentially forced to pick something for fans and commentators to call them during the upcoming football games. In a statement released directly by the team on Thursday, they announced that they will officially be called the Washington Football Team until a new name can be chosen and approved by everyone involved. Reportedly, the Football Team will retain the same burgundy and gold colors for their uniforms, but the Redskins logo on their helmets will be replaced with each player's individual numbers.

Because the official team name has not yet been decided upon, fans will no doubt continue to offer their own suggestions for new names for the Football Team. Several rumored names have already been floating around on social media, and potential nicknames like the Red Wolves and the Red Tails have gained some traction with Washington fans. Inspired by the 2000 sports movie The Replacements with Keanu Reeves, the D.C. Sentinels has also come up as a rumored replacement name for the team, and the possibility had garnered a lot of attention when it was pointed out on Reddit that the domain name for DCSentinels.com had just been registered earlier this month.

Controversy surrounding the Redskins team name dates back several decades, with native American advocacy groups calling for the change for many years. In 2015, even then-president Barack Obama named the Washington Redskins as an example of a sports team name that "perpetuate[s] negative stereotypes of Native Americans." Earlier this summer amid mounting protests, retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Nike, and Target pulled their support for the Washington team by removing all Redskins merchandise from their stores and websites. These actions finally gave the powers that be the motivation needed to formally retire the Redskins name and officially pursue something different, be it the Football Team, the Sentinels, or anything else.

This fall's NFL season is officially scheduled to kick off on Sept. 13. That means that the Washington Football Team still has some time to settle on another name that's a bit more creative and perhaps a little less amusing. Still, there surely must be many football fans out there hoping for no decision to be made soon, as it might be entertaining to watch the fans in Washington starting chants for the "Football Team." While certainly odd, it's got to be far less offensive than the name they were using before. This news comes to us from 10TV.