There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is…Name Namington?
This afternoon, the DC Defenders took part in the first XFL draft since the original iteration of the league folded after one season in 2001. It went about as well as you could expect it would.
In a somewhat confusing turn of events, the XFL tweeted out (and since deleted) a Phase 1 recap including Name Namington as the Defenders’s 10th round pick. His position, of course, was Position.
Yeah the XFL is totally a real thing pic.twitter.com/J3QXhQLHxV
— marisa ingemi 🌈 (@Marisa_Ingemi) October 15, 2019
(It was later revealed that Name Namington was, in fact, tight end Adrien Robinson, but where’s the fun in that?)
One might call Name Namington the true yeoman of the XFL—and not just because he could truly be any man. It’s not every day that a man who simply does not exist is drafted to a sports team. That got us wondering: where would the most generic man in professional sports best spend his time around DC?
Welcome to DC, Name Namington. Here’s our handy guide for the places you should check out while you’re here.
Neighborhood: National Landing/Crystal City
What better place for a fake man to live than a neighborhood that was created out of thin air? A close second: Northwest. No specific area or neighborhood. Just Northwest.
Restaurant: The Cheesecake Factory
Not too long ago, the Michelin Guide for DC announced its 2020 star awards, welcoming newcomers like Maydan and Gravitas. Despite the bustling dining scene in Washington, I believe the Cheesecake Factory is the place for Name Namington: According to the restaurant’s website, there are 12 locations in and around the District. Why splurge on fine dining when you could go to any one of these Cheesecake Factory locations and have a generically good evening?
Monument: The Washington Monument
Is there anything more generically DC than the Washington Monument? There’s an understated beauty to the monument. If you look at it from the south, you see a giant obelisk. If you look at it from the west? Still a giant obelisk. That kind of generic consistency is almost calming in these tumultuous times. Bonus: you can take a photo pretending to hold it up like any of the 23.8 million tourists that visited the city last year.
Date Night: The Wharf
In many ways, the Wharf offers Washingtonians the perfect prototypical date night: you’ve got plenty of places to wine and dine, a place to listen to music, and, of course, a romantic waterfront walkway. Bonus: Name Namington can dock his boat, Boaty McBoatface, at the marina.
Madeline Rundlett is an editorial fellow for Washingtonian. She previously covered All-Met sports for the Washington Post and was an editorial intern at The Hill. Madeline graduated from the George Washington University with a degree in Political Communication in 2019.
