Washington Commanders already trying to make surprise change to crest

A new era has arrived in Washington D.C. and the NFL. After spending the past two seasons working on rebranding their franchise, they have not only revealed the new name, and news uniforms, but have already begun making changes to their team crest that was revealed on the same day as well.

The crest is set to pay homage to the team’s history, with dates of its five championships listed. 1937, 1942, 1983, 1988 and 1992. The difference — they changed the years to the Roman numerals of the game.

The years of the championships will include the year the Super Bowls were played, not the seasons they came in, which comes with some controversy. While the Cowboys are recognized as the 1992 Super Bowl champions, the Commanders list 1992 as their championship season since their 1991 team won Super Bowl XXVI on Jan. 26, 1992.

There’s only one problem. Each change to logos and team identities have to be presented to the NFL for league approval, and the NFL has declined Washington’s request. That’s left Washington in limbo in regard to working out how best to present new merchandise to their fans. The team is still brainstorming ways to tweak the crest to reflect the fan feedback that has been received, according to a report.

The NFL holds copyrights over many elements that relate to the Super Bowl, including the names of the games, which includes how they are listed as by the Roman numerals of the corresponding games, Michael Phillips of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. No other team logo in the league that uses those Roman numerals in their crest, and the NFL requires that any merchandise, Super Bowl-related, or not, has to be cleared through the league’s office.

The easiest way around this rule is to simply use the years the Super Bowl wins took place instead of the roman numerals, which have now become synonymous with the Super Bowl each year. With some merchandise not featuring the crest already available for public consumption and the 2022 season not starting until September, designers inside the Commanders organization still have time to work through a deal with the NFL, tweaked crest or not.

The Commanders dropped a hype video that revealed the brand new name and uniforms a little over two weeks ago ahead of their inaugural season under their new name. You can check the video out here.