


Here in Washington, a long error – okay, I should say “a long era,” but the other term fits, too – recently ended when Dan Snyder sold the Washington Redskins-turned-Football-Team-turned-Commanders. As some fans lament, during Snyder’s 24 years as owner, the team had more names than playoff wins.
And one more name change may be on the way. Very few fans have any affection for the generic “Commanders” name, and both new majority owner Josh Harris and minority owner Magic Johnson indicated they are open to changing the team’s name again – one more symbolic break from the shambolic Snyder years. With so little enthusiasm for the recent name and the rather blah “W” on the helmet, a change after this upcoming season appears more likely than not. (Hey, it’s another opportunity to get fans to buy merchandise with the new name and logo.)
No, there’s no way the team is going back to “Redskins.” But it could end up bringing back a logo from the Redskins era.
The oddsmakers are already taking bets on what replacement name the new ownership will choose, and the current leader is “Spartans.” This is less because of any connection between Sparta and our nation’s capital, than the fact that Magic Johnson attended and played for Michigan State University. But there’s one other advantage to selecting the name “Spartans.”
From 1965 to 1969, the then-Redskins logo was a spear and a feather, and the team wore versions of that as a throwback uniform every now and then in the past few decades. A spear would be a perfectly fitting logo for a team called the Spartans, and the team could keep its classic burgundy and gold colors.
No, the Redskins name would not be back, but a bit of the team’s old traditional look would return – an upgrade over the current bland and generic look, which some compared to an expansion team with no history or heritage.