I have been a Washington Football Team fan my entire life. As the Redskins, I watched as we won three Super Bowl titles from 1982 to 1991. We were right there with those fantastic 49ers teams and those physically brutal Giants and Bears. Joe Gibbs' offenses were great despite having three different starting QBs and three different sets of running backs during each of those Super Bowl runs.
It all came crashing down in the 1990s. RFK Stadium in downtown DC was replaced by what is now known as FedEx Field in the outskirts in Maryland. Daniel Snyder bought the team in 1999 and has turned the franchise into an embarrassment in nearly every way you can imagine. The team hasn't found on field success, hasn't found a sustainable quarterback, hasn't found a reliable coach and has made a bunch of high-priced free agent blunders. Of course, that's the great news as the front office has been a run of "yes men" run by a bro code that led to rampant chaos and sexual misconduct. As a fan, it has been embarrassing.
When I was growing up, the wait list for tickets was years and years long. Now, no one bothers to show up. There were sizable opposing fan bases coming to our games over the last few years and that stadium has fallen apart ... literally ... before our very eyes.
Which brings me to the name change.
I get it. The old name was a slur and needed to be changed. No matter how hard it was being defended by Snyder and the NFL, 2020 became the perfect wave to finally retire the name and move on to something else.
Just not this.
Full disclosure, I was in the Washington RedWolves camp. The RedWolves name has the same cadence as Redskins and could easily fit into the fight song and the HTTR slogan. The wolf (or any canine) has been woefully underused in pro sports. Howling at games. The imagery. Even the wolf can bring some spirit or callback to the Native American honor those who defended the retired name want to hold on to.
Alas trademarks and the like got in the way so I was bummed. I reluctantly hitched my name to Red Hogs just because it would be weird enough to work. I mean, The Hogs have been a defacto mascot for the team for decades and, well, it would certainly be different.
Even if that was too wild, I really grew into the Washington Football Team name. It was quirky. For those who never wanted to change the name, it was a technicality that it didn't really change to anything else. It was mocked but turned into a bit of a cool thing. There needed to be some tweaks, sure, but it could be done up in a big way if we went all in. So of course they didn't want to do that.
No, if Snyder was forced to change the name (and he was forced by pressures around him) then he was going all in to please the Redskins defenders and embrace a military name. Note that most of the finalists were of a military nature and you see where Snyder was trying to go with this.
Why Commanders? I really don't know. I can't change it. I'll have to accept it. Maybe I'll even like it. So indulge me as I say what I like and don't like about ... well ... all of this.
COMMANDERS
I think I've already established that I don't like it. It sounds like a generic name you can pick in Madden. I believe despite what they are saying that they were dead set on picking a military name and this was one that was the most popular. So we are the Commanders. Three syllables and not two like the old name so it doesn't fit in the fight song. It's even difficult to cheer. It has already been shortened to "Commies" by our rivals. Ah, our rivals. Does "Commanders-Cowboys" sound great? I give this a D+
WHITE JERSEYS
I loathe these. I could learn to love the style of them, but the color is hideous. We look like the alternate Cardinals or Falcons jerseys. Maybe if they burgundy-ed it up or used gold on them it would work better. It really seems out of place. Understand that for a long time our white jerseys were what we primarily wore so seeing this monstrosity hurts.
BURGUNDY JERSEYS
Nowhere near as bad. I can get behind these, especially if they were worn with white or gold pants (of course they won't be). If they could ditch the Commanders font on the front, I'd start to love these. Get rid of the bars and make the font smaller and you've got something. And why couldn't the white ones look like this?
BLACK JERSEYS
I didn't need this, but I get it. They look a little too much like the Steelers but they do have their own military flair. I hope we only wear these around 9/11 and Veteran's Day games. I'm not a fan of the helmets ... especially the W at the front of the jersey. I hated the numbers on the helmets when we were the WFT so I'm hating that they kept that here. I do like the font and bars on the nameplate on the back.
HELMETS
The normal helmet is nice. It's matte and keeps the old helmet look kind of similar and what I wished we had as the Washington Football Team. The W is good, though Eagles fans have already called it a taco holder. I would've preferred a gold face mask but that's honestly just a want more than a need. This is by far the best part of the rebrand.
THE CREST
I'm fine with it. It's got a lot going on but there are two things I wished it did. One, it says "Washington Football" on it. Man, go ahead and put "Team" on that and it would've been a nice callback to the WFT. And even though a lot of fans aren't digging the Commanders vibe, having the WFT attached would've been cool. My biggest problem is the dates on the crest. Don't put 1983, 1988 and 1992. Sure, that was the actual year we won those Super Bowls, but it was for the previous seasons of 1982, 1987 and 1991. No one calls them the '86 Bears, do they???? The 1973 Dolphins? Nope. So why did you do this? Either fix those dates or turn them into the Super Bowl numbers (XVII, XXII, XXVI). It will forever bother me.
LETTERMAN JACKETS
This is Snyder's people in a nutshell. They roll all of this out trying to sell us on the look and name. Yet the thing everyone wants is those letterman jackets they all wore at the announcement. And those aren't for sale. I want one. They are so, so, so sharpe ... and should've been the color scheme they went for with the white jerseys instead of whatever that's called.
