Thoughts on the status of the Washington franchise

Posted on by

June 1, 2026

by Steve Thomas

If you listened to last week’s episode of The Hog Sty Podcast (click here to listen), you know that Alex, Dave, and I were lamenting the lack of Washington news to talk about on the show.  I made some sort of quip that it was too bad that we didn’t have some scandals like owner misconduct to fill up the time.  I was joking, of course – I don’t really want that for the team, obviously.  But what that did do is get me thinking about the changes to the franchise that have occurred since Josh Harris purchased the franchise in the summer of 2023, thereby running the league’s pariah, Dan Snyder, both out of the NFL and literally out of the country.

As a result, instead of writing this week about a draft pick, or a particular position group, or the upcoming season, I thought I’d use this week’s column space to reflect a bit on the status of the franchise and how far it has come, generally, over the past three years.  I don’t really have a plan for this column; instead, I’d like to just put some random thoughts out there and let you, the readers, react.

I’m not going to pretend I’m currently the same diehard fan that I previously was for decades.   I’m not going to lie and say that I like, or even can tolerate, the name “Commanders” – I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns – or that it’s the same Redskins franchise with which I grew up.  That having been said, things have gotten much better, clearly, which allows me to view the team with a bit more clarity.

I used to write a bunch of semi-regular columns on the horrific former owner, such as these:

And that’s just a few.  There are more – the offseason was barely about the roster; towards the end, it was nearly always about the chaos in the front office.  The point is that I don’t have to write things like that for this current team.

There’s an air of normalcy to the franchise brought on by new owner Josh Harris that simply didn’t exist during the Snyder era.  There was some sort of hope that winning would eventually happen to some extent, but during that time, we mostly rooted for some version of mediocrity and not to be embarrassed by some strange front office story.  The fact that 100% of those type of stories are gone – which has basically turned the Washington franchise into a “normal” team / company – is a testament to how far we’ve come in and of itself.  Now, we at The Hog Sty are focused on things like what players the team can add to fill out a particular position group, analyzing the schedule, and debating offensive and defensive schemes.  It’s a refreshing change, and it’s what we wanted to focus on when we originally started the podcast way back in 2015 and the website a couple of years later.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the name in a column like this.  I’ve made my feelings regarding the current “Commanders” nickname abundantly clear, which is to say that I hate it to the point that I have a hard time rooting for the team.  To me, my team will always be the Redskins, which no longer exists.  The current franchise is in my view nothing more than an expansion team.  I’m not so naïve as to hold onto hope that “Redskins” will somehow magically return from the ashes of history, no matter how many petitions call for it.  It’s over, and the fact of the matter is that I’m never going to feel the same about this current franchise as I did the real “Redskins” franchise.  I also don’t think Josh Harris is going to change the “Commanders” nickname.  If he intended to go down that route, he’d have already begun the process shortly after he acquired the franchise.  The time for him to change the name would’ve been right when he bought the team, for many reasons.

So, it’s time to give up the dream, as much as I hate that thought.

I think it’s pretty likely that Harris and his marketing team most likely think they can sell the younger crowd, who didn’t live through the glory years and who don’t have the same positive association with “Redskins” as do the older fans, on the “Commanders” name.  They realize that the younger fans are the future, and when the older fans are gone, the former name will be a distant memory.  The basic theory is, win in and they will come along.  I’m not offended; just disappointed.

That having been said, I’d like to give Harris a little credit for trying to bring back some relics of the past in the recent uniform changes.  The return of the traditional “Redskins” uniforms of several years ago and the addition of the spear in at least a limited capacity is a welcome callback for folks like me.  It’s also as close as we’re going to come to former glory.  It’s not enough for me to get back to my former levels of fandom, but honestly, it does help somewhat.

The other thing that will help is a return to the former RFK Stadium site.  There are no good memories of Fed Ex Field / Northwest Stadium except possibly the fact that it was built by the late Jack Kent Cooke.  It’s no accident that the renderings of the proposed new stadium share quite a bit of common features with RFK Stadium.  That’s yet another nod to the past and a big attempt to bring the older crowd along.  I appreciate the gesture, Josh.

So what does all of this mean for me, and probably for many of you?  It’s a pleasure for the team to (a) no longer be a trainwreck and the laughingstock of the NFL, and (b) instead be focused on football.  The results of the 2025 season aside, the team has made progress on the field, so the hope is that while it may not necessarily be a return to the top of the league any time soon, a team that is at least competitive and not embarrassing will be a slowly growing franchise.

I will never be a fanatic for this franchise again, but I’d like to thank Harris and his staff for at least making it possible for me and people like me to come along for the ride to some extent once again.

What do you think?  Let me know in the comment section below.

0