It has been more than 30 years since the NFL team from Washington D.C. last won a Super Bowl, but not so terribly long since they demonstrated themselves to be champions.<\/p>\n
The decision in 2020 to remove the team\u2019s former nickname, an epithet offensive enough I\u2019ll choose not to type it when possible, stands as former owner Dan Snyder\u2019s one positive contribution to the team\u2019s history. Well, that and the choice of \u201cCommanders\u201d, which fits beautifully into the city\u2019s history, as its replacement.<\/p>\n
It was essential to abandon a name that, for decades, stood for suppression and oppression. Washington went one better by adopting a new name that reflects strength and glory. And it was equally impressive that, upon taking command of the franchise in July 2023, new owner Josh Harris declared his commitment to the Commanders brand and defended the decision by explaining, \u201cSports are supposed to bring people together and not be a distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n The question hasn\u2019t gone away entirely. Harris was asked about it at a postseason news conference in February. He\u2019ll certainly be asked again the next time he is available to reporters, perhaps at some point adjacent to the opening of training camp Friday at the team\u2019s headquarters in Ashburn, Va. His answer following the Commanders\u2019 brilliant 2024 season<\/a> ought to suffice.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s now being embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,\u201d Harris said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going with that.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, in this building, the name \u2018Commanders\u2019 means something. It\u2019s about players who love football, are great at football, hit hard, mentally tough, great teammates. It\u2019s really meaningful. That name is growing in meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE: What to know about President Trump’s threat to block stadium development<\/p>\n The team\u2019s old name grows ever more repulsive as time progresses. Merriam-Webster defines the team\u2019s former nickname as \u201can insulting and contemptuous term\u201d. Dictionary.com calls it, \u201cOlder slang: disparaging and offensive.\u201d Twitter\u2019s Grok service declared it to be \u201cwidely considered offensive and insensitive today due to its association with racism, stereotypes and the marginalization of Native American communities.\u201d<\/p>\n There had been surveys done over the years about the old Washington nickname, the most comprehensive of which was conducted by two major universities in 2020. It showed that 49 percent of Native Americans found that word offensive or very offensive. The best summary of the opinion polls on the subject, though, came from Louis Gray, a member of the Osage nation, in a 2013 Tulsa World article.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you take a poll to see if something is racially offensive?\u201d he said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do that with any other race. You wouldn\u2019t have African-Americans vote to decide whether or not any sort of racial (epithet) would be offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s NFL team left all that behind, at last, five years ago. The new era constructed since has included the introduction of \u201cCommanders\u201d as a replacement, the installation of the Harris ownership group and, most important, the ascent of a team that compiled a 12-5 record last season behind rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. By throwing for 3,568 yards and 25 touchdowns and winning 70.5 of his starts, Daniels added Sporting News Rookie of the Year<\/a> award to the Heisman Trophy he won a year earlier at LSU.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Washington unveils ‘Super Bowl Era’ throwbacks for 2025 season<\/a><\/p>\n With the quarterback position expected to be improved even from that exceptional performance, and with important additions made through free agency (defensive lineman Javon Kinlaw) to address a deficient run defense and the draft (offensive tackle Josh Conerly) to help protect the glistening asset at QB, the Commanders have substantial momentum toward a new era of excellence.<\/p>\n Management astutely recognizes it would be reckless to risk disrupting the team’s momentum with any sort of regressive move.<\/p>\n In April, the team held a news conference to announce the development of a new stadium on the site of the team\u2019s former home at RFK Stadium, which would cost $2.7 billion and be completed in 2030 and, because the plans call for covered stands and playing surface, would make Washington a viable contender for such events as the Super Bowl, Final Four and 2031 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n Moving the team back to D.C. after more than three decades in the suburbs would be wonderful for the community. The football franchise enjoys a tremendous amount of leverage in this circumstance, however, with WUSA reporting July 16 leaders from Maryland and Virginia both contacted the team<\/a> to renew their interest in becoming the team\u2019s home after D.C.\u2019s exclusive window to approve stadium construction expired.<\/p>\n So if there were to be some sort of threat to the franchise\u2019s planned return to D.C., alternatives are abundant. The Commanders already have made the most important move. They\u2019ve recovered their own dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been more than 30 years since the NFL team from Washington D.C. last won a Super…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-11448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}