Commanders firmly rule out one possibility for potential name change that could eventually 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 name. 

During an interview on Wednesday with 106.7 The Fan in Washington D.C., team president Jason Wright made it clear that the team would not be switching back to Redskins. 

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

The team went by that name for nearly 90 years before making a switch away from the derogatory term 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. 

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. 

“I think everything’s on the table, especially after this year,” Johnson said when asked about the future of the team’s name. “We’ll see where we are with the name, but I can’t say [for sure] right now.”

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, 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.