Commanders Owner Josh Harris Says He Likes the Spear Logo, Team Eyes 2027 Primary Mark Change

The Washington Commanders might be done calling the spear-and-W design an alternate logo. According to The Athletic's Nicki Jhabvala, the franchise hopes to make the "Hail Raiser" mark, a gold spear piercing a burgundy W, its primary logo as soon as the 2027 season. A source told Front Office Sports the change is "under consideration" but "not done yet."

Owner Josh Harris didn't hide his preference. Speaking to reporters Saturday, Oct. 3, at a fan rally in London ahead of Washington's game against the Indianapolis Colts at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Harris wore a hat with the spear logo on it.

"I like the spear," Harris said, according to ESPN's John Keim. "I mean, what can I say? It brings everything together a little bit. It brings, you know, obviously, the special forces and Native Americans and the Roman gladiators, of course. So, I like the spear."

The comment matters because of what it touches without saying directly. A source told Front Office Sports that fan response and merchandise sales for the Hail Raiser design have been "very positive," and that the team continues to "look at ways to bridge past and present" of the brand.

The history behind the symbol

Washington's uniforms carried a spear-and-feather decal on both sides of the helmet from 1965 to 1969. The look returned as an alternate uniform element in 2002 and 2003. The team adopted its current burgundy-and-gold W as the primary logo when it rebranded from the Washington Football Team to the Commanders before the 2022 season.

That 2022 rebrand followed the franchise's decision to drop the Redskins name and its Native American profile logo in July 2020, a move The Athletic and Front Office Sports both note came under mounting pressure from sponsors on then-owner Daniel Snyder, who had previously pledged the name would never change. Harris, whose ownership group bought the team from Snyder in 2023 for $6.05 billion, has repeatedly said the Redskins name is not coming back.

The unresolved tension

Front Office Sports reported last month that the Commanders have continued limited sales of alumni merchandise bearing the old Redskins name and its Native American profile logo with trailing feathers. A team spokesperson told FOS the goal is to ensure those products "authentically reflect the era they represent" and that selling them helps the franchise "protect our trademarks" by keeping the marks in commercial use. The spokesperson reiterated there are "no changes to our previous position on the team name."

Trademark law generally requires active commercial use to preserve ownership of a mark. But a franchise that spent years insisting it had moved past Native American imagery is still selling some of it, while now floating a new logo whose owner says it evokes Native Americans alongside special forces and Roman gladiators. Fans and critics who pushed for the 2020 name change, including groups like the National Congress of American Indians that long objected to the Redskins branding, could reasonably ask whether the franchise is threading a needle between honoring its past and quietly rehabilitating imagery it once abandoned under pressure. None of the available reporting includes a named advocacy group responding specifically to the spear logo, so that remains an open question rather than a documented controversy.

What happens next

Nothing is locked in. Jhabvala's reporting, corroborated by Front Office Sports and first flagged on social media by uniform reporter Zach Cohen, states the logo swap faces real legal and financial hurdles and requires sign-off from multiple stakeholders before the 2027 target date. The Commanders have a track record of testing designs as alternates first. The "Super Bowl Era" uniforms followed that exact path before becoming permanent earlier this year.

The team debuted the Hail Raiser helmet in April as part of an all-black alternate set that players will wear in Weeks 11 and 15 of the 2026 season, per Yahoo Sports. Whether that one-off becomes the face of the franchise depends on decisions still ahead, including approval processes that have not been completed as of Oct. 3.