The Washington Football Team will officially have a new name this week with the announcement and uniform release scheduled for Wednesday. It’s capping off a multiyear rebranding, which saw much of the fanbase come to embrace the wonderfully generic Football Team name.
But it’s pretty clear that the organization will go in a different direction, and Joe Theismann might have inadvertently spoiled the surprise a couple days too soon.
Just as the potential new name – the Washington Commanders – leaked last week in a domain name transfer, Theismann seemingly confirmed the new name would be the Commanders in a Monday appearance on CBS Sports Radio’s The D.A. Show.
Here’s the video:
Theismann said:
“Yeah. There were so many different options, but once again, it’s trademark infringement, it’s getting approval from different people. If you choose a name, is there a group out there that isn’t going to like it? There’s so many things that you have to consider. Commander, basically, is Washington, D.C. A lot of commanders in Washington, D.C., in the Pentagon and a lot of different branches of the service. So, to me, that’s certainly the way I’m looking at it, as positions of leadership when it comes to the new name.”
Given that Theismann is a Ring of Honor member for the franchise, it would theoretically make sense for him to be included somewhat in the name selection process. But he also had to know that he couldn’t just reveal the name before the announcement.
In follow-up comments, he told the Washington Times that he didn’t know what the actual name would be.
Either way, there is plenty of smoke around the Commanders name. And fans had some thoughts on this latest leak.
This was how some folks on Twitter reacted:
If this is all a smokescreen, though, then it’s really been quite the performance. We’ll know for sure on Wednesday.
