Those are the other two names I see tossed around as potential first round QB picks, but based just on the buzz I hear and read I’m still predicting Sanders and Dart if there are going to be three QBs taken. (Though this is totally a guess, I have absolutely no special knowledge of this, LOL.)
In my gut, I feel like Sanders falls out of the 1st. Which means I either need to buy into the Milroe hype or concede that there won’t be 3 QBs in the first.
Former Bears defensive tackle Steve McMichael, who had been fighting ALS since 2021, and who was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year, entered hospice care earlier today, and passed away this evening, at age 67.
https://wgntv.com/sports/bears-report/bears-great-steve-mongo-mcmichael-dies-at-age-67/
Draft Day Thread
Now that the draft is over…
The Commanders have apparently reached a deal to move back to DC. The deal is scheduled to be announced tomorrow, and would involve building a new stadium at the site of RFK Stadium, which is currently in the process of being demolished.
My money is on yet another name change and rebrand now that they’re under new ownership and have a new stadium.
The deal was announced today; the District is agreeing to pay some of the cost of stadium and area development, but this ESPN article seems to indicate that it would still need approval by the D.C council, which is not necessarily a given.
QB Jordan Travis, selected last year by the Jets in the 5th round, retired today without playing a snap. You probably remember the controversy from the 2023 college season when he led Florida State to a 10-0 record before a severe leg injury knocked him out, and FSU was subsequently left out of the playoffs despite an undefeated record. (They ended up losing 63-3 to Georgia in the Orange Bowl.)
Travis said his leg never healed properly and his doctors told him not to try playing again. Brutal.
The new owner said a couple months ago they aren’t changing the name.
Eh, the “Commanders” is fine. It’s not a great name, but it’s not the worst name. Another rebranding would be expensive so I don’t see why they’d bother.
I really wish they had gone with “Red Wolves” to be closer to the old name, and it sounds cool. I know there was some excuse about trademark issues because Arkansas has a team called the “Red Wolves” but that’s nonsense. We have football teams with the same name all the time. For example, here in my own state we have an Eagles football team out of Eastern Washington University, and nobody seems to care.
“Washington Red Wolves” just sounds alliterative. Oh well, as I said “Commanders” is fine.
I agree. It’s a boring, non-controversial choice. Regarding trademark, I wonder if that’s what prevented them from going with what would have been IMHO the more fun choice, the Washington Generals. Maybe in the old days teams were in some way grandfathered in when they chose the same mascot, but clearly it has happened, such as with the New York football and baseball Giants and the St. Louis football and baseball Cardinals.
I said this back when the original name change happened, but I always felt like the Washington Warriors was the best possible name. I understand there may be some challenges on the trademark front, notably from the NBA Golden State Warriors, but like @Atamasama said…nonsense. We have several teams with the same mascot names across sports, as long as the iconography is distinct, it’s fine.
I like Warriors for a few reasons.
- It’s alliterative which is always nice.
- The current W logo can be kept as a primary or alternate.
- It hints at the original Native American meaning without being offensive (I get that this is a double-edged sword).
- You can use Native American imagery, medieval imagery, Revolutionary War imagery, WWII imagery, modern imagery, whatever for all kind of graphics. Very flexible.
- This is DC, so you can allude to the military/Pentagon in the same way the Commanders does now.
- Metaphorically, it actually works really well for players/fans. Football has always been battle-coded and coaches love to tell their players to be warriors on the field. I can see the merch possibilities.
I kind of get that military mascots are sort of touchy, but they went with Commanders so that seems like a moot complaint. And that retaining even a passing reference to Native American culture will still piss off a certain segment of people, but I think he rebrand would have been adopted more enthusiastically by the legacy fanbase if it kept some culturally sensitive hints of it.
They could have just reused this old official logo.
That is indeed a really awesome name. It’s generic but not in a bad way, because it fits the game of football the way “Commanders” doesn’t. What are they commanding, your attention?
As an SF Giants fan, I have to say it’s a little annoying having two pro teams in different leagues from different cities with the same name. It’s unnecessarily confusing.
Not a big deal, but worth avoiding when it’s easy to do so.
I always considered that the superior logo.
Yet it’s not uncommon. I’m a Seattle football fan, and I’ve at least once had a conversation about “The Hawks” before realizing the other person was talking about basketball.
And before you say “Seahawks and Hawks are different”, if you want to split hairs the New York football team is called the New York Football Giants, not “Giants” (which was intentionally done to differentiate from the baseball team). And prior to 1957, both the football and baseball teams were in New York, so just be glad you don’t have that situation. 
Other teams that have the same name across pro sports:
Cardinals (football and baseball)
Kings (hockey and basketball)
Rangers (hockey and baseball)
Panthers (hockey and football)
There also used to be Oilers and Jets shared between the NHL and NFL, but the Jets in the NHL became the Coyotes and now are currently inactive, and the Oilers in the NFL became the Titans.
As I said, it’s not that unusual for pro teams to do this.
There are two Jets teams once again; the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg in 2011, and changed their name to the Jets as part of the move.
I didn’t know that! Okay, well then there you go. 
(I don’t follow hockey as closely as I do baseball and football, admittedly.)
Washington Warriors would have been a much better name, agreed.
And, from 1950 (when the NFL team relocated from Chicago) through 1987 (after which they relocated once again, to Arizona), both teams played in St. Louis. During that period, the NFL team was sometimes referred to as “the Football Cardinals,” echoing the formal name of the NFL’s Giants.