Opinion: Redskins' Name Will Change Sooner, Not Later

Dan Snyder, the owner of Washington's NFL team, never would have imagined the perfect storm that now has enveloped his team's offensive nickname. To quote Snyder, I think we can use caps on that: NEVER.

Never in the worst of his bad dreams could Snyder have envisioned what the past month would look like in his world of defending the indefensible. Things are going so badly for him that it's becoming easier to picture a time, still likely several years into the future, when he will have to abandon his vow that he'll never -- NEVER -- change the nickname. That day is coming. Not tomorrow. Probably not next year.

But with the past month as our guide, we can see that this is an issue reaching critical mass, where there likely will be no turning back, as shocking as that must be to Snyder.

How could he have imagined that the president of the United States, in the midst of a massive domestic crisis, would answer a question put to him on a football weekend in October about a team's nickname? And that President Obama would give an answer that more people appear to be coming to by the day, saying that if he were the owner of the team, "I'd think about changing (the name)"?

Instantly, Obama turned what had been mostly a sports and cultural conversation into a national debate.

Obama's reply, as measured and sensible as it was, threw Snyder for a loop. Clearly flummoxed, he allowed Lanny Davis, his attorney, to release one of the more condescending and belligerent responses to a presidential comment in recent memory, including what we've heard lately from Congress. The overreaction screamed out panic in the land of Burgundy and Gold.

No wonder. How could Snyder have imagined that the flurry of negative energy that met his club at season's start would not just continue, but strengthen? The conversation has been expanding, with editorial boards and op-ed writers hurrying to weigh in, while Native Americans have coalesced around their just cause, drawing more cameras, more microphones, more reporters, more support.

Snyder could explain away most of the photo ops by telling himself those were just journalists, those troublemakers. But then, at almost exactly the same moment, his most significant ally, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, slowly started to abandon his Snyder Strong stance, walking back his strident but ultimately indefensible tradition-trumps-all position, saying instead that if "one person" was offended, the NFL needed to step back and look at the issue.

That Goodell purposely chose that stunningly low threshold -- one person, when clearly thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands, even millions, are offended -- signaled to one and all that the league understands this is a conversation worth having.

So here we are. More important, here Snyder is. And, most important, here the NFL commissioner is. He has a full-blown controversy on his hands now, and it's not going away. He has to deal with it sooner or later. As a man in his 50s, in the midst of a big career with a legacy still to build, there is no way he will let himself be remembered as the person who allowed a terrible slur to continue to be used as a nickname in his league.

The decision Goodell will eventually encourage or force Snyder to make is reminiscent of the call Billy Payne had to make after he became chairman of Augusta National Golf Club in 2006. The club did not have any female members and faced continued criticism in the news media for its discrimination, even as public opinion seemed to support the club. No matter. The issue reached its inevitable crescendo with a media firestorm in the spring of 2012, and by that summer, there were two female members of the club.

Door to door, it took Payne six years. Let's say the clock started on Goodell when the 2013 NFL season began. The way things are going on this story, it won't take anywhere near that long.