Every potential name for the Washington Football Team, ranked

The Washington Football Team is inching closer to finalizing its permanent name with a video released on Monday showing eight possible names. The team has said three of these names are finalists, from which the final name has been chosen, but has not yet revealed which names the final decision is between.

Obviously it’s too late for us to influence the decision, but now we have a final eight the very least we can do is rank these prospective names.

No. 1: Washington Football Team

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I know we all made fun of “Washington Football Team” when it was first announced, but at this point it’s kind of grown on me. It makes WFT stand out from the rest of the league. Also, never rule out the importance of having a deprecating variant on a team name built it. We have the ‘Aints, baseball has the Barves, WFT so easily becomes WTF that it’s a rallying cry for disappointed fans to gather around.

This name started so dumb, but now I love it. There’s something kind of regal and important about calling your football team “Football Team.” Keep this name, imo.

No. 2: Washington Armada

We do not have enough nautical team names in the NFL. It’s also evocative of the most iconic moment in George Washington’s life: Crossing the Delaware. Now, I know Gen. Washington didn’t exactly have an “armada” at the time, but I still kind of love this.

I don’t want the imagery to be that of some modern, perfect warships — but celebrating the idea of small, Revolutionary War-era boats somehow adding up to being more than a sum of their parts.

We also don’t have a single team name in the NFL that begins with an “A,” and I think that’s a neat little touch too.

No. 3: Washington Commanders

It’s another pretty obvious reference to President Washington, and I don’t hate it. This doesn’t really evoke much emotion from me — but I don’t hate it either. This is the perfectly fine middle-ground nickname that nobody would love, or hate.

No. 4: Washington Brigade

Perhaps I’m overthinking this a little, but I’m just not a fan of directly evoking actual soldiers quite this much in a team name. I just think a more nebulous concept for a team is better than directly comparing football players to members of the military who protect our country.

I understand the idea is to mirror the Revolutionary War, but this is a little too close to words that exist in currently military vernacular.

No. 5: Washington Defenders

There is already an XFL team called the D.C. Defenders. What are you doing baby? If you’re taking cues from the XFL you’re in trouble.

No. 6 and 7 (tied): Washington Redwolves and Washington Redhogs

These are the absolute cop out names that sound like your racist uncle came up with them on Facebook. There is NOTHING wrong with “Washington Wolves” or “Washington Hogs” but by throwing “Red” on the front it’s almost like thumbing your nose at everything that happened over the last twenty years and telling people “we were MADE to do this, we didn’t really want to.”

I mean, yes, that’s true. After all, the team fought tooth and nail to keep their racist nickname until sponsors started to pull money, then they magically found a conscious overnight, but we still don’t need to mention it again.

No. 8: Washington Presidents

KEEP POLITICS OUT OF MY FOOTBALLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Just kidding. Anyway, this name absolutely sucks. At the very best you’re saddling yourself with a name 50 percent of the population hates at any given time, and God help you if there’s another maniac in the White House. Suddenly your team is directly tied to whoever is in the oval office, and that’s just a bad look.

I don’t know who thought this name should be on the final list of eight, to be honest.