The Washington Football Team, previously known as the Washington Redskins, is a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The team competes in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the NFC East. The team plays its home games at FedExField in Landover, Maryland; its headquarters and training facility are at Inova Sports Performance Center at Redskins Park in Ashburn, Virginia, and the Redskins Complex in Richmond, Virginia, respectively. The team has played more than 1,000 games since their founding in 1932, and are one of only five franchises in the NFL to record over 600 regular season and postseason wins, reaching that mark in 2015. They have won five NFL Championships (the latter three in Super Bowls), and have captured 14 divisional titles and five conference championships. The team was the first NFL franchise with an official marching band and the first with a fight song, "Hail to the Redskins".
The team began play as the "Braves" in Boston in 1932, changing its name to the "Redskins" the following year. In 1937, the franchise relocated to Washington, D.C., where they have been based since. Washington won the 1937 and 1942 NFL championship games as well as Super Bowls XVII, XXII, and XXVI. They have been league runner-up six times, losing the 1936, 1940, 1943, and 1945 title games, and Super Bowls VII and XVIII. With 24 postseason appearances, they have an overall postseason record of 23–18. Their three Super Bowl wins are tied with the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders, behind the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots (six each), San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys (five each), and the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants (four each).
All of the team's league titles were attained during two 10-year spans. From 1936 to 1945, the Redskins went to the NFL Championship six times, winning two of them. The second period lasted between 1982 and 1991 where the Redskins appeared in the postseason seven times, captured four Conference titles, and won three Super Bowls out of four appearances. They have also experienced failure in their history. The most notable period of general failure was from 1946 to 1970, during which the Redskins posted only four winning seasons and did not have a single postseason appearance. During this period, the Redskins went without a single winning season during the years 1956–1968. In 1961, the franchise posted their worst regular season record with a 1–12–1 showing. Since their last Super Bowl victory following the end of the 1991 season, they have only won the NFC East three times with just nine seasons with a winning record. In those, the team only made the postseason in six of them.
The Redskins name and logo drew controversy over its history, with many criticizing it as offensive to Native Americans. In wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, the team announced it was retiring the Redskins name and would reveal a replacement at a later date, temporarily playing as the Washington Football Team that season. According to Forbes, Washington is valued at approximately US$3.1 billion, making them the fifth most valuable franchise in the NFL and the 14th-most valuable sports franchise globally.
FedExField, originally Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, is an American football stadium located near the Capital Beltway in Prince George's County, Maryland, 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Washington, D.C.. The stadium is the home of the Washington Football Team of the National Football League (NFL). From 2004 until 2010, it had the largest seating capacity in the NFL at over 91,000. Currently, the capacity is 82,000. FedExField is in the Summerfield census-designated place and has a Landover postal address.