Ron Rivera talks placeholder name for Washington: 'This is a 16-to-18-month process to do it the right way'

The club will be known as the "Washington Football Team" for at least 2020

After stripping themselves of their former "Redskins" moniker earlier this month, Washington announced on Thursday that they will be called the "Washington Football Team" as they head into 2020. This will not be the permanent rebranding of the club, rather simply a placeholder until they find a name that better suits them going forward for the next century. That permanent name that Washington continues to search for, however, doesn't appear to be on the horizon anytime soon. 

"No, we're not close to making a decision," Washington head coach Ron Rivera told CBS This Morning on Friday about finding a new name for Washington. "The biggest thing that we've learned is that this is going to take steps. This can't happen automatically so we're going to have to go through the process. On July 3, we mentioned that we were going to go through a thorough background check on everything and we found that it's going to be a little bit harder than we anticipated. 

"We came out and said we were going to retire the name and logo. Yesterday, we came out and said pretty much what we've done is we put a placeholder in terms of the name. We are going to be known as the Washington Football Team because, truthfully, this is a 16-to-18-month process to do it the right way and really not miss the opportunity to rebrand ourselves, hopefully for the next 100 years."

In Thursday's announcement of the placeholder name, Washington also revealed its new uniforms, which had only minor tweaks (numbers on the helmet, "Washington" written on the chest) to what they've typically worn. The color scheme was also the same and that will remain even as they embark on a rebranding down the road.  

"The colors will stay," Rivera confirmed. "The big reason is because there's so much tradition and history with this football team. To change the colors would kind of distract from what this team has done in terms of its past history with the championships that its won."

Rivera, who said that he grew up a fan of the team, admitted, however, that the rebranding of the team name and logo is simply a piece to the overall culture that Washington is trying to re-establish. 

"I think the thing that people have to understand is this is going to be a little bit of a transition, it's not going to happen immediately," he said. "We're going to try to win the fans over by playing good football more than anything else. When you play well, when you win football games people get behind you and they support you. We've got to come out and show our fan base that we're the same football team, just a different name right now, a little placeholder. 

"We've got to do things the right way, we've got to change the culture as to who we are. Really not just rebrand the name, but rebrand the style of football we're going to play, rebrand the way we do things, and that's probably one of the most important things that we've got to do right now."

Over the next 50 days, the team will continue to retire their former name across physical and digital spaces as they lead up to their debut as the Washington Football Team when they open up their regular season against the Eagles on Sept. 13.