The Commanders’ former name and logo are gone. Unless they aren’t.
As explained by Eric Flack of WUSA, the Commanders are selling in their team store gear containing both the name and the logo.
The Commanders have insisted that the name and the logo are gone for good. They told Flack that they’re using both on a limited basis in order to preserve their trademark rights. And they stress that none of it means they’ll be going back to either.
Still, it feels as if the Commanders are periodically dipping a toe a little deeper into the water regarding the possibility of bringing back both.
Or maybe they’ve decided to pander, just a bit, to fans who want the old name and logo to return.
Without researching the niceties of copyright law, it seems possible to shelve trademarks indefinitely without making it open season on the protected name and logo.
And if they’re truly never going back to the name and the logo, why do they care about preserving the trademark rights? That fact alone suggests they’re reserving the right to bring both back — at the right time.
Commanders Clips
The Commanders signed offensive tackle D.J. Humphries to a one-year deal, according to multiple reports.
Humphries worked out for the team earlier in the day.
The Commanders needed help at the position with starting left tackle Laremy Tunsil out with a torn triceps.
Humphries, 32, appeared in eight games for the Rams last season, with one start, and he has started 101 career games.
The Cardinals drafted him in the first round in 2015.
He made two starts for the Chiefs in 2024.
The Commanders have let go of an offensive lineman.
Washington announced on Tuesday that the club has released offensive tackle Foster Sarell.
Sarell, 27, joined the Commanders in March for his second stint with the club. He previously as with Washington for the offseason program and training camp last year before he did not make the 53-man roster.
Sarell has also spent time with the Ravens, Giants, and Chargers. But he’s only appeared in games with Los Angeles, making 41 appearances with four starts over the last four seasons.
The Commanders announced the previously reported signing of linebacker Boogie Basham on Tuesday morning and they also made a number of other roster moves.
They have released safeties Will Harris and Malik Spencer while also placing linebacker Drake Jackson on injured reserve. They signed safeties Joshuah Bledsoe and Quindell Johnson to round out the transactions.
Harris started all nine games he played for the Commanders last season and finished the year with 38 tackles, a sack and a forced fumble. Jackson, who was a 2022 second-round pick by the 49ers, played in three games for Washington.
Bledsoe played for the Patriots for two seasons after being drafted in the sixth round in 2021. Johnson went undrafted earlier this year.
The Commanders are adding a veteran edge rusher to their roster.
According to multiple reports, the Commanders will sign linebacker Boogie Basham. Basham worked out for the team on Monday.
Basham played in three games for the Panthers last season and recorded four tackles. He then moved on to play for the DC Defenders during the 2026 UFL season and had 24 tackles, three sacks and two forced fumbles.
Basham entered the NFL as a Bills second-round pick in 2021. He spent two seasons in Buffalo before being traded to the Giants and spent two more seasons with the NFC East club.
Basham has 61 tackles, 4.5 sacks, an interception, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery for his career.
Veteran wide receiver Noah Brown is looking for a new team.
The Raiders announced today that they have released Brown, just a week after signing him.
The 30-year-old Brown spent the last two years with the Commanders and was a starter when healthy, although he missed 19 games while playing 15 over the last two seasons.
Given his injury history and inability to last long with the Raiders, it might not be easy for Brown to find another team interested in signing him, but he’s now an unrestricted free agent and can go to any team that wants some veteran receiver depth.
Commanders running back Rachaad White is making progress in returning from a hamstring injury.
White tweaked his hamstring in a joint practice with the Dolphins on August 12. He’s been out of practice since.
Today Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said White has progressed to the point where he can do individual work on the practice field. He is not yet doing 11-on-11 work.
White, who signed with the Commanders this offseason, is expected to split time at running back with Jacory Croskey-Merritt.
The Commanders are also getting defensive tackle Tim Settle back at practice after he missed time with a calf injury.
Daniel Snyder is the perfect example of a fundamental truth: The only thing better than being rich and famous is being rich.
Snyder had become rich and notorious until the NFL forced him out of Club Oligarch. While many owners were believed to be inclined to keep him around despite allegations of misconduct and mistreatment of employees, the tipping point arrived when the other owners had reason to believe Snyder may have been picking their pockets, by allegedly diverting ticket revenue from Commanders games (40 percent of which are shared with the rest of the league) to non-Commanders events at the stadium he owned.
Whatever the reason(s), some owners who were previously concerned about creating a standard that could potentially be used against them agreed that Snyder had to go. And in the three years since he left, Snyder has become (as explained by Mark Maske of Front Office Sports) “invisible.”
In 2023, Snyder sold the Commanders to a group led by Josh Harris for a then-record $6.05 billion. (That record will soon be shattered, when a group led by Vinod Khosla acquires the Seahawks for $9.612 billion.)
Snyder had been linked to potential investment in an English soccer club. That never happened. And he has completely disconnected from any relationship he made in more than 20 years of franchise ownership.
“I don’t think anybody is in touch with him about anything,” an unnamed NFL team official told Maske. “I don’t know who he hangs out with. I don’t know who he talks to. Certainly nobody in the NFL is talking to him.”
Snyder and his wife have relocated to London, with no apparent plan to return to the United States.
“He’ll never be back,” an unnamed Snyder associate told Maske. “In London, they . . . don’t bother him.”
That said, Snyder hovers over former Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell. Gruden’s case arises from the weaponization of confidential emails harvested during Beth Wilkinson’s investigation of the team. A small universe of people had access to them.
Snyder, given that he owned the network from which the emails were gathered, was necessarily one of them.
And with Snyder out of the country, getting his testimony in the Gruden case will entail a complicated and cumbersome process.
But Gruden seems to be very motivated to get to the bottom of who ordered the Code Red against him, resulting in his forced resignation from the Raiders in October 2021. His lawyers presumably will do whatever it takes to get Snyder under oath, so that he can be grilled about any knowledge he may have regarding the leaks that led to Gruden’s ouster.
Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels made his preseason debut on Saturday. If you blink, you may have missed it.
Daniels got the start and handled one drive. It was a three-and-out that netted one yard.
In the three plays that Daniels was on the field, he was 0-for-1 passing and suffered a 10-yard sack.
Sam Hartman and Athan Kaliakmanis, a seventh-round rookie from Rutgers, played quarterback after Daniels.
Backup Marcus Mariota is currently out with a knee injury. He’s expected to miss the rest of the preseason with an MCL sprain.
The Commanders play the Ravens next weekend before opening the regular season at Philadelphia.
Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels is set for his first action of the preseason.
The team released a list of 15 inactive players for Saturday’s game against the Lions and Daniels is not on it. Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said earlier this week that a good amount of the team’s starters would see action in the team’s second game of the preseason, but that he was unsure if Daniels would be among them.
Wide receiver Stefon Diggs is also set to see his first game action since signing with the Commanders. Terry McLaurin also avoided the inactive list, so it looks like the Commanders will get their first look at their top receiver tandem in action.
If that is the case, they will not be joined by the team’s top running backs. Jacory Croskey-Merritt, Rachaad White, and Jeremy McNichols are all inactive, which leaves sixth-round pick Kaytron Allen as the top back who is expected to play.
