By Joe Pohoryles
After 18 months and seemingly endless speculation, Washington’s NFL franchise finally settled on a new name: The Commanders.
Team President Jason Wright promised misdirection during the process, to make sure the name wasn’t spoiled, but the team failed to blur out some of the names and logos in their online rebranding series, and legendary quarterback Joe Theismann all but confirmed the name in a radio appearance 48 hours before the official announcement. Not to mention, a news helicopter captured the banners in FedEx Field the night before the announcement.
All the spoilers culminated in an awkwardly giddy Doug Williams (another legendary Washington quarterback) unceremoniously announcing what everyone already knew on the Today Show. Even Commander Dan Snyder (feel like that’s gotta be his official title now, right? Commander Dan?) joked about how the name was so poorly kept under wraps.
In any case, it’s finally over. My position has long been that nearly any name would be better than no name at all, and Washington finally has a name again. I don’t love the name, and it will certainly take some getting used to, but I don’t hate it.
With that being my surface-level opinion, after taking over 24 hours to digest this whole process, here are my main takeaways:
People (myself included) were going to complain no matter what
Change is hard. It makes people uncomfortable, and after 80+ years of knowing a team by one name, adjusting to the new one will take time. No matter what name they chose, people were going to be unhappy with at least one aspect.
‘Commanders’ was the safest name to choose. From everything I had seen leading up to it, very few people loved or hated it, and most viewed it as “eh, alright I guess.”
I was part of the crowd that fell in love with ‘Red Wolves,’ but a large faction of other fans inexplicably hated it. I was also a fan of anything Hog-related due to its ties to team history. Oh well.
I’m at least glad they didn’t pick one of the wacky names suggested like ‘Admirals,’ ‘Armada,’ ‘Presidents’ or something else like that. To me, ‘Commanders’ falls right in the middle.
My one gripe is there is no obvious shortened version for a team with a name that long. The Capitals are ‘the Caps,’ the Nationals are ‘the Nats.’ Are we really going to call the Commanders ‘the Commies?’ As a student at Boston University’s College of Communication (COM) maybe I just shorten it to ‘the Coms?’
Perhaps it will follow suit of the Portland Trail Blazers and San Francisco 49ers, and abbreviate with the back half of the name. We’ve got ‘the Blazers’ and ‘the Niners,’ so will I start walking around saying “Go Manders?” Maybe? I don’t know, but the point is, there’s no natural nickname.
There are a handful of objectively worse names around the league, but everyone will rip on ‘Commanders’ because it’s new
As I said, I don’t love the name ‘Commanders,’ but when it comes to names across the NFL, it certainly isn’t the worst. You may disagree with me, but I believe the following names (in no particular order) are worse than ‘Commanders,’ at least in a vacuum:
- 49ers: I get it fits the region, but I’ve never viewed numbers as being a good name for a team. That said, this is a legendary franchise, which makes this name seem normal.
- Texans: Uninspired and redundant; falls in the same lame category as ‘Montreal Canadiens’ and ‘Philadelphia Phillies.’
- Packers: Another top-tier franchise, but without the historical context, the name ‘Packers’ itself is just dumb.
- Bills: I hesitate to put it here because it really rolls off the tongue and is just perfect for Buffalo, but attach any other city to the name ‘Bills’ and it’s terrible.
- Chiefs*: I put the asterisks because when you think about it, the names essentially mean the same thing. They both even start with a ‘C.’ I would even contend ‘Commanders’ sounds cooler than ‘Chiefs,’ but I’ll settle for equal.
- Browns: No explanation needed.
To me, these names on their own aren’t any better, if not worse. I also get football isn’t played in a vacuum and some of these names are good because of their historical/geographical context. That said, the name ‘Commanders’ doesn’t have any historical context yet, so when you level the field, I would argue it’s a better name than all of what’s listed above.
I don’t mean to antagonize these fan bases/teams, but my point is for all the jokes that will be made or all the hate ‘Commanders’ will receive, it really isn’t that bad. Especially when you look around the rest of the league. It just needs a chance to establish its own historical context, and winning (should it ever happen) will help that.
The jerseys and logos are rough
Perhaps this is me being a hypocrite, hating because they’re new, but I saw no need to change the jerseys. Add the logo to the helmets, put ‘Commanders’ on the front and make whatever other necessary tweaks. But an entire redesign?
The burgundy one looks fine; it at least mostly resembles the previous look. Again, a full change didn’t seem necessary, but I can get on board with it.
The white one though… Wright promised not to change the color scheme and keep the Burgundy & Gold, which is true everywhere except here. There’s more black than gold on this jersey, making it seem like a Falcons or Cardinals reject. The ugly gradient is out of place compared to the other uniforms as well. To me, it doesn’t fit the franchise at all.
The black one I couldn’t care less about. I think the point of a third jersey is to have the freedom to get a little funky and out of the box with it. I get the Steelers comparison, but again, since it’s not the main home/away jersey, I’m not bothered by it.
Now the logo… it took them 18 MONTHS to come up with THAT? That’s the best they could do? Pretentious explanation aside, they could have made a nicer-looking ‘W,’ or come up with a better logo in general. For all the things they completely rebranded, it seems like they just took their Washington Football Team ‘W’ logo and made it worse.
The crest would be cool if they didn’t botch the Super Bowl years. I get the team won their Super Bowls in January of 1983, 1988 and 1992, but literally everyone and their mother refers to the Super Bowl seasons. How could they mess that up?
It was never going to be perfect, but the way it was handled was just horrific
I don’t need to rehash everything that went wrong, but my biggest issue with this whole process was the fact that head coach Ron Rivera and Wright, two guys that have been with the franchise for a combined two seconds, were the ones leading this charge.
They have no personal ties to the team history, and both could be gone in five years or less, yet they made the lasting decision. I truly hope people like Joe Gibbs, Williams and other franchise legends were as involved as it was made out to be. Or maybe Snyder picked ‘Commanders’ in July 2020 and this whole re-naming process was one big farce. I wouldn’t be shocked.
Either way, it is what it is, and I’m not gonna waste anymore energy being angry about the things that went wrong. Eventually the logo, jerseys and name will seem normal, and as mentioned before, success on the field will expedite that process ten-fold. Whether that success comes is a whole other story.
Cover Photo Credit: The Washington Commanders
The Wildcard 