“That ship has sailed!” Commanders boss Mitchell Rales claims Washington won’t be restoring the team’s former name

The Commanders were sold to the Josh Harris led ownership group this year.

“That ship has sailed!” Commanders boss Mitchell Rales claims Washington won’t be restoring the team’s former name

Mitchell Rales (via Forbes)

The Washington Commanders‘ ownership for the past 23 years has been terrible. Only two playoff game victories and a host of off-field controversies later, Dan Snyder, the former owner of the Commanders, decided to sell the team to an ownership group led by Josh Harris. Now that the team is under new management, one of the questions going into this season is the team name.

The new owners could opt for a new name or keep the existing one as it is. What they are not going to do, however, is bring back the old moniker, the Redskins. At a dinner hosted by David Rubenstein and the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Mitchell Rales, the top partner in the ownership group talked about the Commanders and the situation around the name of the team.

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“That ship has sailed,” Rales said. “We’re not going to re-litigate the past. We’re about the future. We’re about building the future and not having a divisive culture that we’re engaged in. 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. The beauty is we have the time to look at all of this stuff intelligently and make fan-based decisions.” Team president Jason Wright in a recent interview also confirmed that the name Redskins is “not being considered, period.”

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The Washington-based team went from Redskins to Football Team to Commanders the span of three years. They played as the Redskins till the 2019 season, but faced a lot of heat for that name as it was considered racially insensitive. They changed their name to the Washington Football Team for the 2020 and 2021 season before changing it again to the Commanders in 2022.

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Washington Commanders’ owner Josh Harris impressed by Ron Rivera so far

Josh Harris (L) and Ron Rivera (R)
Josh Harris (L – Sports Illustrated) and Ron Rivera (R – The Washington Post)

The Washington Commanders are under new management. Finally! After facing a disastrous last couple of decades under previous owner Dan Snyder, the team welcomed a new ownership group this year led by Josh Harris. Now that the is under new leadership, it will be interesting to see when the wins start coming for the Commanders.

Head coach Ron Rivera hasn’t had much success with the team, but he did not receive a lot of blame as most of it was directed towards Snyder. Harris was asked about Rivera in a press conference and he had good words for the HC. “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Coach Rivera,” Harris said. “He’s a good man; he’s done a great job in terms of where the team is relative to where it was when he got here and relative to a lot of the distractions going on.”

Although Harris praised his head coach, he also admitted that the results will eventually be taken into consideration when making key decisions. “It’s going really well….Ultimately we have to deliver wins on the field. You don’t need to say anything. It’s just out there. So far, so good.” The Commanders begin their season on September 10 against the Arizona Cardinals.

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