Let’s take a deep breath and acknowledge a truth about the events of the week: Holding a celebratory, welcome-home news conference for an NFL team — complete with legends from the franchise’s decorated past, the best way to stir emotions — is at best premature and at worst disrespectful to the citizens who are going to be footing the bill. No, not all of the bill. But not nothing, either.
The Washington Commanders may well move back to the District, to the RFK Stadium site that feels like the team’s spiritual home. Thus, the political pep rally held Monday. But let’s not act as though this is a straight-up gift from a new ownership group whose reputation is glistening in part because it is held up against that of the previous, dreadful regime.