Non-name of the year

And now some fresh strangeness for y'all, just in case 2020 hasn't yet dropped truckloads enough to suit you.

The Washington Football Team has decided on a new name, albeit a temporary one.

The name will be "The Washington Football Team."

Yes, that's right, folks. Rather than rush to re-brand itself, it's decided to un-brand itself. Until the marketing department can come up with something suitable, and hopefully not racist or anything, the Washington Football Team has decided not to call itself anything.

And so the 2020 NFL season, which already promises to be bizarre and probably short-lived the way the Bastard Plague is going, gets even more bizarre. One of the league's teams is going to play the season as the football version of generic lunch meat.

As such, the Football Team will wear its usual colors of burgundy and gold, but the helmets will be adorned only with the numbers of the players. Which actually is kind of cool in a retro sort of way.

In any case, the Football Team, whose football promises to be as generic as its name, should inspire headline writers to new heights, if nothing else.

Imagine, for example, that the Football Team starts off 0-6 or something. The headline writes itself: "In Washington, There's No 'I' In Team. There's Also No 'W'."

And when they finally win one: "Team Calls Win A Team Effort."

I could go on, but people are throwing things at me now.

The danger here, as the Blob sees it, is what happens if the fan base decides it kind of likes this exercise in minimalism? What if they start wearing throwback burgundy-and-gold jerseys with no logos, only Sonny Jurgensen's name and number on the back? What if there's actually a backlash when Dan Snyder and the rest of the doofuses launch their re-brand sometime next summer?

I mean, we all know fans don't like change. So it's possible we could see headlines like this:

"Washington Football Team Fans Bash Re-Branding."

"'Anti-Generic Bias' Claim Washington Football Team Enthusiasts."

Underneath which the story reads thusly:

WASHINGTON -- Fans of the Washington Football Team are unhappy with the Team's new nickname, unveiled to great fanfare by owner Daniel Snyder and his staff this week.

The new name?

The Washington Flying Nouns.

"Stupid," one fan said. "What's wrong with the 'Washington Football Team'? Generics are cool these days. I just bought a bag of generic cheese puffs. They were delicious!"

"Great! Another change!" another fan exclaimed.

"Anti-generic bias!" claimed yet another fan.

Snyder reacted to the furor with his usual tact.

"I give up trying to please these knuckleheads," he said. "We chose a nickname that couldn't possibly offend anyone, and the fans act as if we burned Joe Theismann in effigy. To hell with all of  'em. They can go root for the Packers for all I care."

Unfortunately for Snyder, the uproar isn't likely to die down anytime soon. This week the National Society of Grammarians issued a release criticizing the Flying Nouns nickname, saying it "failed to recognize the contributions of verbs, gerunds and other vital components of the language."

OK. I'll show myself out now.