Daniel Snyder's decision to change Redskins' name may be linked to his obsession with building a stadium 'bigger and better' than the Cowboys

• The Washington NFL team announced on Monday that it would drop "Redskins" from its name.
• According to former team executive Vinny Cerrato, team owner Daniel Snyder may have dropped the name to help get the land to build a new stadium.
• According to Cerrato, Snyder has been obsessed with building a "bigger and better" stadium than the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium.

Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington NFL team, may have finally decided to change the team name to improve his odds of getting land for a new stadium.

The Washington NFL team announced on Monday that it would drop "Redskins" from their name, though the new name has not yet been announced.

The overdue decision came after financial pressure from sponsors, including Nike and FedEx which, respectively, pulled gear from its online store and threatened to take its name off the team's stadium.

According to former team executive Vinny Cerrato, who worked with the team from 1999-2001, then from 2002-09, Synder has long wanted to build a "bigger and better" stadium than the Dallas Cowboys. With politicians threatening not to sell federally owned land in Washington D.C. to Snyder unless he changed the "Redskins" name, Synder may have been left with no choice.

Cerrato said that one year, Snyder, his family, and the Washington front office had dinner at the Cowboys' AT&T Stadium, nicknamed "Jerry World," with Jerry Jones and his family. According to Cerrato, after eating dinner in Jones' private suite and getting a tour of the stadium, Snyder was determined to one-up Jones.

"Ever since Jerry built his stadium ... Ever since then: 'I'm gonna have one bigger and better,'" Cerrato said of Snyder's thinking on ESPN's "Golic and Wingo."

"And trust me when I tell you this: Dan will have one bigger and better ... He'll use it as a chip to be able to get that land where RFK [Stadium] was — to change the name. I would bet that it's somewhere involved in there, that the name change is also helping him get the piece of property that he really probably wants."

D.C. Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio, one politician in a group calling on Snyder to change the team name, told The Washington Post's Liz Clarke earlier in July: "There is no viable path, locally or federally, for the Washington football team to return to Washington, D.C., without first changing the team name."

Snyder and the team have been exploring new stadium homes, with their lease in FedEx Stadium in Landover, Maryland, set to expire in 2027.

RFK Stadium, where the team used to play before leaving for Landover in 1996, is on a 190-acre lot that is only to be used for stadium purposes. The old stadium, which Clarke says is in disrepair, is set to be razed in 2021, perhaps clearing the way for Snyder to his own version of "Jerry World."

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