The Washington Commanders?
Seriously?
It probably wasn’t the worst of all the possible choices, but it sure seems to me that there’s only one possible response to the once-proud NFL team’s choice of a new nickname.
Meh.
So the former Washington Redskins, winners of three Super Bowls but essentially irrelevant in this century, have announced their new nickname. And with Washington abandoning the name Redskins and Cleveland changing from Indians to Guardians. I think that reduces the number of pro sports teams with Native American-based nicknames to three.
Can you guess them all?
Two come to mind right away, and both have won championships in the last few years. The Atlanta Braves won the 2021 World Series and the Kansas City Chiefs won the 2020 Super Bowl.
“Chiefs” isn’t always a world for Indian chiefs, but since the team uses an arrowhead as its logo and plays in Arrowhead Stadium, it probably doesn’t mean police chiefs or chief petty officers.
So who is the other team?
The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League.
And technically, there might even be one more, although the Golden State Warriors of the NBA don’t use any Native American imagery, and “warriors” can be more than that.
But words like braves, chiefs and warriors don’t have a derogatory side to them. Redskins originated as a pejorative, and while Indians is sort of generic, Cleveland’s logo of Chief Wahoo was pretty offensive.
The new nicknames, Commanders in Washington and Guardians in Cleveland, are just sort of boring.
As are the two franchises. It has been 30 years since Washington even played in a Super Bowl and 74 years since Cleveland won a World Series.
Until Daniel Snyder bought the Redskins from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke, the team was pretty close to the gold standard in the NFL. Between 1982 and 1992, Washington played in four Super Bowls and won three. They haven’t come close since and there appears to be one step back for every one step forward.
Commanders is definitely a military nickname, but oddly, it’s only a rank in one of the four services — the Navy.
The picture above isn’t going to be the logo of the Washington Commanders, but boy, wouldn’t it be a great one.
Another good name might be the Commandos, but that causes a different problem.
Anyone familiar with the term “going commando” knows that it means going out without underwear.
Even that might be an improvement on Commanders.