The Vikings will play all of their home games at the University of Minnesota this season, while they wait for a new stadium to be built. In week nine, the Vikings will host Washington and the university's president said the school was "working with the Vikings to make every effort to eliminate the use of the Washington's team name" for the November 2nd game.
In June, U.S. Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) wrote to Vikings owner Zygi Wilf urging him to keep the name out of the stadium. She also carbon copied the University president, Erik Kaler. The president responded to McCollum August 1st and said the Vikings were working with the school to make it happen.
The Vikings, not promising anything, have not commented on what extent they will help.
Lester Bagley, the Vikings' executive vice president of public affairs, said Wednesday night that the team is still deciding how it will handle the college's request to eliminate the use of the Redskins' name for the Nov. 2 game. He said Vikings and school officials met once on the issue, in late July at the university, but plan on further talks between now and November.
"We take the issue very seriously, but we're just getting ready for our season and we've been very focused on training camp and the preseason, and to be honest, we don't have a game plan for our Nov. 2 game versus Washington," Bagley said.
Snyder and his merry band of doofuses, on the other hand, continue to trot out the same response they have been forever: Nah, it's cool. Some of my best friends are offensive caricatures.
Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie said Wednesday night that the team disagrees with the school's effort to bar the Redskins' name for the game at TCF Bank Stadium, the University of Minnesota stadium. "We have met many native Americans from Minnesota who agree with our position and feel we are using the term correctly and honorably, " he said.
It doesn't matter how this plays out, either, someone is still going to look bad. Zygi Wilf can either decide against helping the University, aligning himself with Snyder, or he can not look like a jerk and let Snyder deal with this on his own.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
U-Minn. seeks to bar Redskins' name at school's stadium on Vikings game day [WaPo]