The origin dates back to the early days of the NFL. To capitalize on the popularity of Major League Baseball, the early NFL owners adopted a strategy of giving a name to each team that was associated with the existing MLB team in the same city. In some cases the team names were identical — MLB and the NFL both had the New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, for example. In other cases they were similar — MLB had the Detroit Tigers, so the NFL named the Detroit team the Lions; MLB had the Chicago Cubs, so the NFL had the Chicago Bears; etc.
The Redskins started as the Boston Braves and played in the same stadium as MLB’s Boston Braves. Shortly after that the team ownership changed and they moved into Fenway Park with MLB’s Boston Red Sox as their landlords. The owners changed the team’s name to the Redskins so they would be associated with the Red Sox while retaining an Indian/native connection to their old Braves name.
As Paul Harvey would have said … “And now you know the rest of the story!”
Interesting.
The football Cardinals were Chicago Cardinals before they moved to St. Louis (and now Phoenix).
and why are they now known as the Washington Football Team?
cuz the owner is a ball less coward