Aaron Rodgers blames fan sign for wrongly identifying Washington Commanders as Redskins

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.

In a Truth Social post on July 20, Trump threatened to hold up the deal for a new football stadium in Washington should the team not go back to the Redskins name. One day after Trump made the threat, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke to reporters. She confirmed that the president’s comments were not a joke.

“The president was serious,” Leavitt said Monday, via the Associated Press. “Sports is one of the many passions of this president. He wants to see the name of that team changed.”

Earlier this year, the Commanders announced their plans to build a new stadium. The organization plans to build the stadium on the site of RFK Stadium, the team’s home venue from 1961 to 1996. The new stadium would be near the Anacostia River, along East Capitol Street in Washington’s Hill East neighborhood.

The project is estimated to cost $3.7 billion and begin construction in 2026. It is expected to be completed in 2030. While the project hasn’t encountered too much friction until now, the plans are still pending approval by the D.C. Council, with legislation introduced June 25. Now, Trump is getting involved.

“I think you’ve seen the president gets involved in a lot of things that most presidents have not,” Leavitt said. “He’s a nontraditional president. He likes to see results on behalf of the American people and, if you actually poll this issue with sports fans across the country, and even in this city, people actually do support the president’s position on this and the name change.”