Commanders minority owner Mark Ein joined Kevin Sheehan on his podcast over the weekend – a segment Kevin played on his show on The Team 980 on Monday – and Ein had quite a few interesting things to say, most notably that rebranding ‘isn’t the top priority currently, and is a way bigger lift than people understand’ and that a new stadium ‘could take seven to nine years, with 2030 likely the early end of a move in date.’
The Junkies put up their Scotty’s Vodka Poll of the Day asking which of those two delays was the bigger disappointment, with early polling running almost 50/50, and on the former, Cakes’ prediction if Week 1 of 2027 isn’t looking so good…and that’s the bigger problem for him.
“If I lose a bet, won't be the first time, certainly won't be the last,” Cakes said, “but the fact that the rebrand is not a higher priority is bigger news to me. The stadium, we’re already halfway through 2024 and there’s no site, no design…they have nothing right now, so playing their first game in a new stadium in 2030 or 2031 sounds like about the right sort of timeline. But when you're saddled with a bad identity and bad brand, which I think they're saddled with currently, like that should be a higher priority.”
“But there’s one thing that cures it all: winning,” Bish shot back. “If the Commanders are in the NFC Championship Game in the next couple of years, people don't care about the rebrand.”
“They care about it less, but it's still a bad identity and bad brand that they're currently trotting out to their customers,” Cakes shot back. “If they won 13 games a season, three straight seasons, it's still a bad team name, still a bad brand.”
“But they care more about winning, and that’s what matters more,” EB replied. “Everyone agrees it’s a dumb name and no one's ever gonna like Commanders, but just win, because it’s less important. We've already lost the battle on Redskins, and no matter what name we pick, everyone's gonna have different opinions, so I don’t care anymore.”
Cakes hears that, but thinks if the entirety of the last regime is being cut out, why stick with the name too?
“Because at the end of the day, it’s not that important,” EB said, even as Cakes disagreed. “The name is boring and generic, but you trivialize yourself when you change your name every few years. It doesn’t matter it didn’t all happen on their watch, there’s no mandate to me to eliminate everything that happened dueing the Snyder tenure. I don’t care if there’s remnants, just win!”
“If they aren’t winning and Daniels is a bust, then it will come to the forefront,” Bish added. “And we’ve talked about names – the Wizards name sucked, and people still don’t like it, but it’s grown on me.”
Listen to the whole conversation above!