“I hope you will attend one of our home games, where you would witness first-hand that the Washington Redskins are a positive, unifying force for our community in a city and region that is divided on so many levels,” team President Bruce Allen wrote Mr. Reid.

The letter offered several rebuttals to arguments that Mr. Reid and other Democratic senators made in a letter earlier this week asking the NFL to force the team to change its name because they considered it racially offensive.

Mr. Allen argued the Redskins‘ name “originated as a Native American expression of solidarity” and that the team logo was designed by Native Americans in 1971.

He also noted that 90 percent of Americans in one poll didn’t find the team name offensive, and that an Associated Press survey earlier this year found 83 percent of Americans supported keeping the team name.