Earlier this week, we published our latest SB Nation Reacts survey, sponsored by the folks over at FanDuel Sportsbook, asking Commanders fans two questions about ownership issues — the uniform reveal scheduled for April 15th this year, and the NFL Draft that will be held in Washington DC in April next year.
Let’s look first at the 2027 Draft.
Will you attend the 2027 NFL Draft in Washington DC?
Both NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Commanders owner/managing partner Josh Harris have spoken publicly about having a million people attend the NFL Draft
in 2027, which would make it the most-attended Draft event in NFL history.
So, I confess to being somewhat surprised that just under half the respondents in our survey answered simply “NO” when asked if they will attend the draft next year.
For a community of NFL fans that spends so much time focused on player evaluations, mock drafts and discussion of roster-building, I was expecting great enthusiasm for the event. I had anticipated that the bulk of respondents would have either said “YES” (if they were local) or “I would, but I can’t” if they lived too far away or had other issues that would keep them from attending, but only 51% of Hogs Haven readers who responded to the survey answered this way, with less than 1/4 of all respondents (23%) saying that they will attend.
I looked to the comments section of the survey article for a little guidance in understanding these results, but, of the 101 comments that followed the article, all but a couple focused almost exclusively on the uniforms, the logo and the “brand”, with little enlightenment on offer about why 77% of all respondents either don’t want to go to the draft at the National Mall next year or are unable to do so.
The upcoming uniform reveal
On April 15th, you can look forward to a last-minute rush to file your taxes if you are a habitual procrastinator; the rest of us can spend a more relaxing day discussing the Commanders uniform “fit” for 2026.
We’ve been told a lot already. Last year’s white ‘Super Bowl era’ jerseys are likely to become the permanent white; a burgundy version of the ‘Super Bowl era’ top will be introduced this season; the “Battle Blacks” will get a makeover that may include re-positioning the “W” logo from the forehead to the side of the helmet, and it seems as if the regular helmet will have the old white & gold stripes added back and the finish changed from matte to gloss. I’ve picked these ideas up from Tik Tok and Twitter where they’ve been discussed in some depth for months, but it can be hard to separate informed discourse from wishes and hopes.
At the owners’ meeting about a week ago, Josh Harris very blatantly teased the reveal, saying that they (the Commanders front office) had something up their collective sleeve and that he didn’t want to ruin the ‘surprise’.
Given the very strict nature of the league’s rules about uniforms and logos, it’s hard to keep much hidden from the public for very long, but it would probably be a mistake for Mr. Harris to tease a surprise and not deliver.
A popular theory is that the team could work the ‘spear’ symbol into the uniform, perhaps as part of the sleeve ornamentation. Other possibilities include a return to the true burgundy color rather than the much redder hue that the jersey’s have tended towards in recent years. Different facemask colors could be a fairly subtle nod to the team’s history (and many expect the gold facemask to make a return in this uniform refit). Some fans cling to hope that the “W” will be replaced on the helmet by a spear, the feathered “R”, or the logo that adorned everything Redskins from 1972 to 2019. It seems unlikely that these changes are coming this week when the rules for notifying/getting permission from the league office for such changes are considered.
When asked about the level of interest fans had in this week’s upcoming uniform reveal, 70% of respondents said that they were either “keen as mustard” (40%) or “curious” (30%). In other words, most Hogs Haven readers appear to take some level of interest in the brand and uniform look — some a very deep level of interest.
It seems important to note that roughly 1 in 5 respondents picked the “O” option; that is, “Unless they bring back the old logo (and maybe fix the name), it’s all a waste of time and effort”.
Nearly 6 years after the team stopped using the Redskins name and the Chief Two Guns White Calf logo, and a year or more after Josh Harris stated very publicly and very clearly that the team is committed to the Commanders name (a statement Harris repeated this week), nearly 20% of Hogs Haven readers who responded to the survey are so focused on going back to that history that they consider any other work done on the brand to be “a waste of time”.
This number is both big and small in my mind.
It’s big in the sense that about 1/5th of survey respondents cling to the old name despite all that’s happened. It’s interesting to me that that group of fans appears to carry the deep wound of the name change, yet still follow the team closely enough to read Hogs Haven and participate in a site survey. Their fandom is wounded but not dead.
It’s small in the sense that more than 80% of fans seem to have moved on, or at least reached some level of acceptance about the direction the owners have chosen to go with respect to name and branding. And, while about 11% of respondents either don’t really care about the uniform ‘update’ or are cynical about the reasons for it, a significant majority — 70% — of fans seem to be interested in what’s in the pipeline.
Josh Harris has repeated a clear message in all of his public statements in recent months: the team wants to embrace and celebrate the past while looking forward to the future. At the owners meeting where he made his most recent remarks to the media, he pointed to the new stadium design as a model for that mantra. The stadium, as Harris said, looks like RFK — that is, it has the same profile. But it will also be a very different stadium — one with a 21st century roof, 21st century scoreboard, 21st century technology for fans, and nods to Washington DC and the Commanders ‘brand’ with elements like the appearance of columns or pillars on the stadium’s exterior.
The front office is trying to thread a needle in which the team’s history, former players, coaches and past achievements are all recognized while the Redskins name is gradually buried in that retreating past and the longtime logo takes on an ‘emeritus’ status in retirement — honored, but no longer asked to do any heavy lifting.
At the same time, the team is trying to find ways to build a Commanders brand that means something. Some elements they are leaning into so far include the spear imagery and the new columns that hint at the Greek and/or Roman influence that is also woven into DC architecture. I get the sense that the owners and executives are feeling their way forward a bit at a time as they attempt to turn what they inherited with the purchase of the team into chicken salad, if I can be forgiven the use of only half the metaphor.
My feeling is that this process will creep rather than sprint forward, and that the projected opening of the new stadium in 2030 sets a key milestone for the (re)rebranding work to be substantially accomplished. For the next few years between now and then, I imagine we’ll all be part of an inexorable journey towards that still-indistinct future brand/look/identity of Washington football, with the next big installment — but hardly the last — being unveiled on Wednesday.
Some other Reacts results from other teams this week that you may find of interest
