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Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris says the team name has been embraced by players and coaches and another rebrand is not on tap.
The Washington Commanders plan to stick with their name and are not considering another rebrand, principal owner Josh Harris said at a news conference Monday.
“It’s now being embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,” he said. “We’re going with that.”
The name had been widely panned by the fan base, many of whom wanted a return to the team’s former name — a notion Harris struck down multiple times including in August when he said, “For obvious reasons, the old name can’t come back.”
In April, the Washington Post ran a poll in which 58% of local Commanders fans did not like the name. However, since then, the Commanders drafted quarterback Jayden Daniels who helped lead the team to their best season in more than three decades.
At their season-ending news conference last week, coach Dan Quinn and general manager Adam Peters referred to the “Commanders’ standard” that was established this year. Players would refer to that as well.
“The name Commanders means something,” Harris said. “It’s about players who love football, are great at football, hit hard, mentally tough, great teammates. It’s really meaningful that that name is growing in meaning.”
The Athletic (paywall)
Harris maintained his 2030 timeline for a new stadium in D.C. or adjacent to the current Landover, Md., location. While his active involvement in the RFK site process on Capitol Hill suggests a preference for a stadium in the nation’s capital, Harris pushed back on any pre-determined outcome.
He praised the efforts of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, including his role in not stifling Harris’ stated goal of getting “D.C. to the table” for negotiations. That now-realized scenario expanded the pool of potential jurisdictions. That assumes various factions within the District government jointly embrace a stadium footprint with potential retail/housing involved. Mayor Muriel Bowser is a staunch advocate for a new stadium.
“D.C. has to decide what it wants to do,” Harris said. “It has a lot of flexibility to do whatever it wants with the land. … Nothing has been decided. We’re going down both paths at once.”
We want to keep improving the experience and so we’re doing a lot of different things. What we want to do is create an environment where players want to be, where coaches want to be. So you’ll see a lot of improvements here in Virginia about just everything from the wet areas (the showers) to the weight...
