Sunday NFL Football Open Thread: #Rams at the #Panthers – plus #Redskins commentary

Carolina Panthers
Grrrrrowwwlll!

The 2-3 Carolina Panthers had an impressive win last week over the Minnesota Vikings and are hoping to bring their season to .500 with a home game win today against the 3-3 St. Louis Rams. It’s a perfect fall day for some football here in Charlotte, with sunny skies and where temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 60s.

Game time is at 1 pm ET and it will be broadcast locally on Fox.

In related football news, Washington Post reports that two DC radio stations are refusing to play ads calling for the Redskins to change their name:

As the debate over the name of Washington’s football team grows louder, one of the more vocal groups on the issue has found itself unexpectedly silenced.

The Oneida Indian Nation learned Friday that the radio ad it had scheduled to run in Washington this weekend as part of its national β€œChange the Mascot” campaign, will not air. A representative of CBS Radio Washington cited increased discussion around the name as the reason for pulling the ad from two of its stations, WJFK and WPGC.

β€œBased on the amount of on-air debate, adding paid commercials from one side is not something that we think is beneficial for this discussion and for our audience,” Steve Swenson, senior vice president of CBS Radio Washington wrote in an e-mail that was provided by the Oneida Nation to The Post.

WJFK, or 106.7 The Fan, bills itself on its Web site as β€œthe radio station for D.C. sports fans. Our opinions are unbiased and unfiltered, and we never hold back.”

The New York-based Oneida group, which hasΒ emerged as one of the strongest forcesΒ in the name-change push, advertised on both stations at the start of the season. The one that was supposed to run this weekend was titled β€œLegacy” and questioned the one Redskins owner Daniel Snyder would leave. Snyder defended the nameΒ in a letter to fansΒ last week.

β€œBy changing his team’s name Mr. Snyder can create a better historical legacy for himself β€” one of tolerance and mutual respect, not of racial epithets,” Oneida representative Ray Halbritter says in the ad. β€œNative Americans do not want their people to be hurt by such painful epithets. We just want to be treated as what we all are: Americans.”

Friday, Swenson confirmed that the stations would not be running the ad this weekend.

Thoughts?

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