The old "Boston Braves" became the Washington "Redskins" in 1933, the same year FDR was elected President and Hitler was named German Chancellor.

Urban legend has it that the team's new owner chose the name because his head coach claimed to be part Sioux, and there were several Native Americans on the roster.

Few would have given a second thought to the name in 1933, when Jim Crow was still the law of the land in much of America, and other prejudices now long identified as insults and Indian nicknames, were not only socially acceptable but formally (and informally) codified, from the ranks of the military to grammar schools.

Between 1933 and 2014, however, most if not all Americans have given up many, if not all, their bad old ways. And for those who haven't, the new rules of what my grandfather would have termed "gentlemanly behavior" make open expressions of gratuitous insult "bad manners."

Why keep such a divisive name for a team based in the nation's capital? Do we really want to concede the title "America's Team" to the Dallas Cowboys?

Tradition? Does anyone miss "The Bullets?"

Economics? EVERYONE would have to buy all new team flags and jerseys and other paraphernalia . . . and all the old ones would become instant "collectors' items."

"Redskins" fans have a new coach and a new season ahead of them.

What better time for a change.

If the owner and the NFL can't make a clean break, keep the logo and change only the name.

"The Brave" works. Not, "The Braves" but "The Brave," as in 'home of.' After all, what other team should claim the last lines of the National Anthem as their own.

And while we're at it, a new name would allow us to change the words to the fight song, AGAIN.

First performed at a game in 1938 (not the best of years in the west) the owners edited out some of the fight-song's earlier Lone-Ranger-and-Tonto-style lyrics, including, no kidding: "Scalp 'em, swamp 'um, We will take 'um big score, Read 'um, Weep 'um, touchdown, We want heap more."

From 1959 to 1961, the words "Fight for old DC" were replaced in the programs with "Fight for old Dixie," a nod to the intensified post Brown vs Board prejudices of the teams south-of-the-Mason-Dixonline fan base. (The team was the last in the NFL to integrate.)

And for those of us familiar with the history of Germany at the time the team was named and its fight song composed, "Hail Victory" has negative connotations, especially in German.