If you’re a Washington fan flush with exuberance at having rid yourselves of the worst owner in NFL history and looking to buy some new Commanders gear to usher in the Josh Harris era, you might want to pump the brakes on that.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson, a part of the Harris ownership group and co-owner of the Commanders, declined to take a possible name change off the table when discussing the various moves the new owners are considering for the franchise.
“I think everything’s on the table, especially after this year,” Johnson told The Today Show. “We’ll see where we are with the name, but I can’t say [for sure] right now.”
The Washington Commanders introduce the new team mascot Major Teddy after the first half of the game between the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Browns at FedExField on January 1, 2023, in Landover, Maryland. (Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
Magic certainly could have shut down any discussion of a name change, so it’s noteworthy that he didn’t. The openness of the new ownership group to break with the name and shred any remaining link the team had to Dan Snyder was also echoed in an interview with ESPN’s Dan Van Natta on the Rich Eisen Show.
“Yes, I think there’s a pretty good chance of that, to erase any part of the Snyder legacy, to have a complete do-over,” Van Natta Jr. explained to Eisen. “I would not be surprised at all if we see a name change and a complete rebranding.”
The Snyder era/error was one of the darkest periods any sports franchise has ever experienced. A 24-year run of futility in which the team had more nicknames (3) than it had playoff wins (2).
So, clearly, the Commanders new owners have many more pressing issues to deal with than another name change.
Washington Commanders Owner Josh Harris. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)
Though, if they’re determined to go through another renaming, one has to wonder why they would even bother unless they were going to go back to Redskins. Harris grew up a Redskins fan in Suburban Maryland. He even used the word “Redskins” in his introductory press conference. If anyone would do it, it would be him. Would Harris be willing to re-trigger the wokes by re-igniting the name change controversy by going back to Redskins?
I don’t know. There simply isn’t enough known about Josh Harris and how much he cares about that. Hopefully, he does. But if he’s not willing to change it back to Redskins, he should probably just leave it alone.