Commanders co-owner firmly rules out one option for possible name change that could soon be coming

If the Washington Commanders end up changing their name again, there’s one name they definitely won’t be switching to, and that’s their original one. 

During an appearance on Wednesday at a dinner in Washington, D.C., Commanders new co-owner Mitchell Rales made it very clear that the team would not be switching back to the Redskins. 

“That ship has sailed,” Rales said, via the Washington Post. “We’re not going to relitigate the past. We’re about the future. We’re about building the future and not having a divisive culture that we’re engaged in.”

Rales’ comments echo those from team president Jason Wright, who had said last week that a switch back to the old name wasn’t an option that the Commanders were going to consider. 

“It is not being considered. Period.” Wright said, via the Washington Post.

The team went by the old name for nearly 90 years before making a switch away from the controversial name prior to the 2020 season. In both 2020 and 2021, they were known as the Washington Football Team before switching over to the Commanders in 2022. 

A petition to bring the old name back has generated more than 130,000 signatures online, but right now, the Commanders have made it clear that they’re not going to make the switch no matter how many people sign the petition. 

Right now, it’s unknown if the Commanders will keep their current name or if they’ll switch to something different. Magic Johnson, who owns a minority stake in the team, hinted in July that a name change could eventually be coming. 

According to Rales, the Commanders will consider all of their options at the end of the season. 

“We’re going to look at everything come the end of the year and think about a lot of different things and do a lot of testing and see what people think. And we’ll learn,” Rales said. “The beauty is we have the time to look at all of this stuff intelligently and make fan-based decisions.”

There was some speculation that the Commanders might switch back to their original name after new owner Josh Harris used the name multiple times during his first few weeks on the job, including at his introductory press conference in July. 

“The Commanders were once the No. 1 franchise in the NFL back when they were the Redskins — not the Dallas Cowboys,” Harris said at the time, via Sports Illustrated. 

Although Harris admitted that a name change could eventually be coming, he did say that it wasn’t one of his top priorities. 

“It’s not about how I feel, it’s about how the city feels about all this stuff,” Harris said at the time, via ESPN.com. “We’re going to look at everything and see where we are.”

Harris noted that the immediate priorities would be “the football season, getting back in the community to reconnect with the fan base and improving the fan experience at games,” according to ESPN. 

What this all means is that a name change could certainly be coming at some point, but it definitely won’t be happening this year, and if it does come, the Commanders definitely won’t be changing their name back to the one they used from 1933 to 2019.