In a special appearance at the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp, Aaron Rodgers joined The Pat McAfee Show and seemingly inadvertently dropped some red meat in the fight over Washington’s team name. He mistakenly called the franchise the “Redskins.”
The accidental drop came with a fan decked out from head to toe in Washington gear jumping up and down holding a sign that read “This Guy Gets It It!” with an arrow pointing to the old Redskins logo just behind McAfee’s stage. Rogers blamed it on that being at the front of his consciousness.
“I mean everybody’s 0-0 right now,” Rodgers began, answering a question about potentially winning a Super Bowl title in Pittsburgh. “There’s 32 teams that feel like they can win a championship. But you guys know, covering the game, there’s only a handful of teams. I always say like six to eight, but it’s really like eight to 12 because there’s some of those teams like the Redskins… sorry, like the Commanders last year.”
The crowd erupted when Rodgers said Redskins, and the fan with the sign immediately began bouncing up and down. Of course, Rodgers quickly downplayed the miscue.
“I saw the sign, that’s what got me,” he said. “I was talking to Ty about the San Diego Chargers playing. When you’re as old as I am you’ve played in so many different stadiums and against different team names. We beat the St. Louis Rams. That team doesn’t exist anymore. But there’s a history of excellence that exists in only a few places around the league, and thankfully I’m here at one of them.”
The gaffe from Rodgers is ultimately a minor one, but it will throw additional fuel on the fire as the Washington franchise name remains a hot button issue. President Donald Trump has been on the forefront calling for a reversion to the old Redskins name.