How is the 2nd black hackneyed here ? The management had ample time and were trying to change the offensive name and mascot. The idea in the second blank should be negative. The executives still settled on one of the most offensive name. It makes sense with the math strategy as well. Shouldn’t the second blank be synonym to offensive??
They were trying to come up with a “clever” replacement
They failed
i.e the contrast is with clever, not offensive