The Commanders unveiled new uniforms for the 2026 season earlier this year and they’ve now announced the schedule of what duds they’ll be wearing each week of the year.
They will open the season against the Eagles wearing their white uniforms and they’ll wear those uniforms five more times during the season. They’ll sport their burgundy jerseys for nine games, including their Week 3 home opener against the Seahawks.
For the other two games, the Commanders will sport their “Hail Raiser” alternates. That look includes black jerseys and pants along with a black helmet that includes a spear piercing the team’s “W” logo.
The games with the alternates will be a Week 11 Monday night home game against the Bengals and a Week 15 home date with the Falcons.
Commanders Clips
Ten years ago (or thereabouts), stories began to emerge about NFL quarterbacks using virtual reality to augment their training.
The talk quieted fairly quickly, apparently because teams that were using it didn’t want to publicize how well it works.
That’s what made the inclusion of an extended look at Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels using a VR headset in the new season of Quarterback on Netflix a bit surprising.
“They select the play and I’ve got seven seconds to kind of process what coverage I think they’re in and the ball snaps and you’ve got to go out there and make a quick decision,” Daniels said.
The two-plus-minute segment includes both head coach Dan Quinn and then-quarterbacks coach (now offensive coordinator) David Blough talking about the benefits of the system.
“I can say, ‘Hey, we’re expecting this play against three coverages. Can I get these three coverages brought into the system,’” Blough said. “And then he’s able to see different defenses and operate from there.”
“You might have not had that exact play at practice,” Quinn said, “but now that you do, there’s recall that goes with it.”
It also gives a quarterback a chance to see, as explained by Cognilize CEO Verena Krakau, everything in the next stadium where a team will be playing, such as the location of the play clock.
One coach who, in recent years, was fairly talkative about the VR system was former Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians. In June 2019, he expressed hope that then-starter Jameis Winston had embraced it. (Given that Winston threw 30 interceptions in his first and only season with Arians, Winston possibly didn’t.)
The next year, Arians said new starter Tom Brady was “falling in love” with the VR system Arians had brought with him from Arizona. And the 2020 season culminated in a Super Bowl win.
Basically, any team that isn’t using VR for quarterback training should be. Which further explains the general reluctance of teams that are using it to zip it.
The football world has noticed the social-media antics of 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk in recent weeks. Former 49ers quarterback and Hall of Famer Steve Young has, and he expressed concern for Aiyuk on Thursday, from the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
“I worry for him,” Young said, via Edward Lewis of the New York Post. “I feel like I want to reach out and help. This is beyond football, it feels like. . . . It just feels like we need to not make it about football right now.”
Earlier this week, former 49ers executive Ran Carthon expressed similar concern, suggesting he’d reach out to Aiyuk.
It’s possible that more than a few NFL figures have tried to advise Aiyuk, who wants to sign with the Commanders. Until he files a petition for reinstatement with the 49ers and shows up for training camp (which likely could force his release), it will be clear that he’s not listening.
To anyone.
Jayden Daniels has a social media feud with Brandon Aiyuk, who has expressed interest in playing in Washington. While the embattled 49ers wide receiver continues to talk noise, the Commanders quarterback has quietly gone back to work.
Daniels worked with his wide receivers, running backs and tight ends in Los Angeles.
Commanders wide receiver Dyami Brown posted a photo of the 12 players participating in the offseason work.
Terry McLaurin was among those present.
Daniels is entering his third NFL season, coming off a sophomore season that saw him play only seven games. He was on the injury report every game except the opener.
John Riggins won a Super Bowl while wearing No. 44 in Washington and no other players will be wearing that number in the future.
The Commanders announced on Thursday that they will be retiring Riggins’ number during the 2026 season. The team will hold a ceremony to honor Riggins during halftime of their Week 9 game against the Rams.
Riggins spent the first five seasons of his career with the Jets before moving on as a free agent. He would spend the rest of his career in Washington and posted four 1,000-yard seasons with a career best of 1,347 yards coming in 1983. He also set a franchise record — tied for sixth in NFL history — by running for 24 touchdowns that season and he added six more scores in the postseason.
Riggins also had four touchdowns in the 1982 playoffs, including a 43-yard score in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl XVII win over the Dolphins.
“Riggo, as many know him, helped define one of the most successful eras in our history,” Commanders owner Josh Harris said in a statement. “He played with a rare combination of physicality, fearlessness and personality that captivated fans and inspired his teammates.”
Riggins still holds franchise records with 7,472 rushing yards and 79 rushing touchdowns. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1992.
It’s hard to miss the ongoing developments in the Brandon Aiyuk saga, especially since some of you send an email whenever he posts a new video on Instagram.
Most recently, Aiyuk had another message for Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and a general point about his intended social-media habits if/when he lands with a new team.
As to Daniels, Aiyuk said this: “He said, ‘I don’t do that Internet shit, bro. Hit my phone if you gotta talk to me, bro. You got my number.’ I called . . . he don’t answer. Hit my phone, bro. It’s important. It’s the money on the line.”
Aiyuk also explained his “social-media antics” by saying this: “Well, shit, I gotta get paid somehow. ‘Cause the employer holding me captive without pay. At least social media paying.”
Aiyuk then said that, even when he’s back in the NFL, “I’m still gonna be on my bullshit on social media.”
None of it matters until Aiyuk petitions the league for reinstatement from the reserve/left squad list and then, when reinstated, reports for camp with the 49ers. At that point, their only sensible move would be to cut him.
But Aiyuk has said he won’t be “reinstating” with the 49ers. Which shows that he knows exactly what he needs to do to put the 49ers in checkmate, and that he refuses to do it.
Until Aiyuk does, anything else he says is noise. And it seems that no amount of noise will persuade the 49ers to release him from the reserve/left squad list, because it costs them not a penny to keep him there.
The Commanders have hired Demitrius Washington as a senior personnel executive, Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports reports.
Washington replaces Scott Fitterer, who left the Commanders to join Athletes First.
Washington previously worked with Commanders General Manager Adam Peters in San Francisco. Washington worked in the 49ers’ football research and development department from 2015-21, overlapping with Peters from 2017-21.
Washington spent the past four years in the Vikings’ front office, most recently as assistant General Manager.
In November 2025, Von Miller said he didn’t regret choosing the Commanders over the Seahawks. He declared at the time he’d make the same decision “10 times out of 10.”
He probably wouldn’t make it 11 times out of 11.
Appearing on the 89 podcast with Steve Smith and James Palmer, via Jacob Camenker of USA Today, Miller said of his decision: “Obviously, I picked the wrong team on that one.”
Although some are aggregating the quote in a way that frames it as a diss of the Commanders, the sentiment would have applied to any of the other 30 teams in the NFL. With a choice between the Seahawks and any other team, the Seahawks were the right call.
But, as always, hindsight is 20/20 vision.
“For me, with the Washington Commanders, I just felt like Jayden Daniels was poised for another great season,” Miller said. “His rookie season went all the way to the NFC Championship, and last year, he got hit with injuries, not just at the quarterback position, but all over the place. And those are some of the things that you just can’t calculate on teams.”
Miller now laments the fact that he missed the chance to win three Super Bowls with three different teams. He won a ring (and the Super Bowl MVP award) with Denver in 2015. Six years later, he won a second ring after an in-season trade to the Rams.
To Miller’s credit, he didn’t agitate to be traded or released once it became clear that the Commanders weren’t going to get back to the playoffs.
His plans for 2026 remain unknown. He said in January he’d like to stay in D.C.
In March, Miller said he’d like to return to the Broncos, if he doesn’t re-sign with the Commanders. In late May, Miller was lobbying for the Broncos.
Hopefully, he won’t have two options again — if the one he doesn’t pick ends up winning the Super Bowl.
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
One member of Washington’s front office is departing the organization.
According to multiple reports, Scott Fitterer is leaving the Commanders to join Athletes First, working within the agency’s coaches and executives division.
Fitterer had been a personal executive for the Commanders for the last two seasons.
He was previously the Panthers’ General Manager from 2021-2023, with Carolina accumulating a 14-37 record in his tenure.
Fitterer had been with the Seahawks in a variety of roles from 2001-2020, last serving as the team’s vice president of football operations.
