Latest news with #Commanders
USA Today
an hour ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Sights and sounds from Day 1 of Washington Commanders training camp
We are back for another year of first player to the field, day one of training camp is … *drumroll* … Cole Turner Welcome back, football. Training camp opened on Wednesday for several NFL teams, including the Washington Commanders. It marked the start of a new year for Washington. Fans are excited to see what the Commanders do for an encore after last season's surprising success. A return to practice also meant the return of star quarterback Jayden Daniels. Wednesday's practice featured the Washington debut for future Hall of Fame edge rusher Von Miller. Miller was working through drills with his fellow 2011 draft alum Ryan Kerrigan, who is now Miller's coach with the Commanders. The duo has a combined 225 career sacks. The Daniels to Deebo Samuel connection already looks promising as the pair hooked up for a touchdown in the early portion of practice. It was a beautiful day in Ashburn for the opening of camp. Let's take a look at some of the best photos and videos from those in attendance on Day 1 of Commanders' training camp. Laremy Tunsil: And here is Sam Cosmi in the flesh JD5 and the QBs getting warmed up #raisehail Back Leremy Tunsil & OL Coach Bobby Johnson before practice 🏈 Jayden Daniels is on site for 1. Year 2. Let's go campin' 🏕️ Noah Brown loosening are here & Sam Cosmi walks out with no sleeves. #Commanders @team980 Defensive guys headed out for Day 1 🏈 #Commanders The newest member of the #Commanders, welcome 2-time Super Bowl Champ #24 Von Miller!@JPFinlayNBCS @Gio_Delfa #RaiseHail Year 2 on deck The smile says it Daniels excited to be back on the field for Day 1 of Washington Commanders training might be the best :55 seconds of your welcome. Ryan Kerrigan and Von Miller workin'Just a casual combined 225 career sacks between the two 2011 first rounders LT1: Large human being. Get used to seeing Deebo operate around the line of scrimmage with catch-and-run opps. Jaylin Lane catching punts from Tress Marshon Lattimore is my X-factor for the Washington Commanders defense this he's healthy and goes back to being that shut down changer. Make sure to follow along for more coverage of Commanders' training camp.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Commanders LB, ex-Seahawk Bobby Wagner buys stake in Seattle Storm as 1st active NFL player to invest in WNBA team
Washington Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner has purchased an ownership stake in the Seattle Storm. The Storm announced the transaction on Wednesday in a statement Wagner shared on his social media. 'It's an honor to join the Seattle Storm ownership group and support a franchise that has consistently set the standard in women's professional sports,' Wagner said, via the announcement. 'This is about more than basketball, it's about investing in a legacy of excellence, empowering women and continuing to elevate the game for future generations.' The Storm did not announce the percentage of Wagner's stake. They announced the news of Wagner's purchase weeks after reports that that Storm had sold 1.5% of the franchise's equity to three different investors at a valuation of $325 million. It's not clear if Wagner was part of that group or if his is a separate transaction. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] Prior to joining the Commanders in 2024, Wagner was a fixture in the Seattle community as an 11-year veteran with the Seahawks and a defensive anchor for the franchise's only Super Bowl championship team from the 2013 season. Now he's a stakeholder in the city's WNBA franchise. Multiple retired athletes have invested in WNBA franchises, including Tom Brady (Aces), Dwyane Wade (Sky) and Alex Rodriguez, who purchased a majority stake of both the Minnesota Timbewolves and Lynx alongside business partner Marc Lore. But, according to the Storm, Wagner is the first active NFL player to invest in a WNBA team. He does so prior to his 14th NFL season and after being selected to an All-Pro team for the 11th straight season.
Japan Today
an hour ago
- Politics
- Japan Today
Trump likes renaming people, places and things. He's not the first to deploy that perk of power
By LAURIE KELLMAN FILE - President Donald Trump holds up a signed proclamation declaring Feb. 9 Gulf of America Day, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum watches aboard Air Force One as Trump travels from West Palm Beach, Fla. to New Orleans, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File) History, it has been said, is written by the winners. President Donald Trump is working that lever of power — again. This time, he's insisting that Washington's NFL team change its name from the Commanders back to the Redskins, a name that was considered offensive to Native Americans. Predictably, to Trump's stated delight, an internet uproar ensued. It's a return to the president's favorite rebranding strategy, one well-used around the world and throughout history. Powers-that-be rename something — a body of water, a mountain in Alaska, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Mumbai, various places in Israel after 1948 — in line with 'current' political and cultural views. Using names to tell a leader's own version of the nation's story is a perk of power that Trump is far from the first to enjoy. A name, after all, defines identity and even reality because it is connected to the verb "to be,' says one brand strategist. 'A parent naming a child, a founder naming a company, a president naming a place ... in each example, we can see the relationship of power,' Shannon Murphy, who runs Nameistry, a naming agency that works with companies and entrepreneurs to develop brand identities, said in an email. 'Naming gives you control.' In Trump's case, reviving the debate over the Washington football team's name had the added effect of distraction. 'My statement on the Washington Redskins has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way,' he wrote on his social media platform, adding a threat to derail the team's deal for a new stadium if it resisted. In fact, part of the reaction came from people noting that Trump's proposed renaming came as he struggled to move past a rebellion among his supporters over the administration's refusal to release much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking investigation. Over about two weeks, Trump had cycled through many tactics — downplaying the issue, blaming others, scolding a reporter, insulting his own supporters, suing the Wall Street Journal and finally authorizing the Justice Department to try to unseal grand jury transcripts. Trump's demand that the NFL and the District of Columbia change the team's name back to a dictionary definition of a slur against Native Americans reignited a brawl in miniature over race, history and the American identity. Trump's reelection itself can be seen as a response to the nation's reckoning with its racial history after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. That year, Americans elected Democratic President Joe Biden, who championed diversity. During his term, Washington's football team became first the Washington Football Team, then the Commanders, at a widely estimated cost in the tens of millions of dollars. And in 2021, The Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians. In 2025, Trump has ordered a halt to diversity, equity and inclusion programs through the federal government, universities and schools, despite legal challenges. And he wants the Commanders' name changed back, though it's unclear if he has the authority to restrict the nearly $4 billion project. What's clear is that names carry great power where business, national identity, race, history and culture intersect. Trump has had great success for decades branding everything from buildings he named after himself to the Gulf between Mexico, Cuba and the United States to his political opponents and people he simply doesn't like. Exhibit A: Florida's governor, dubbed by Trump 'Meatball Ron' DeSantis, who challenged him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. And Trump is not the first leader to use monikers and nicknames — branding, really — to try to define reality and the people who populate it. Naming was a key tool of colonization that modern-day countries are still trying to dislodge. 'Naming,' notes one expert, 'is never neutral.' 'To name is to collapse infinite complexity into a manageable symbol, and in that compression, whole worlds are won or lost,' linguist Norazha Paiman wrote last month on Medium. 'When the British renamed places throughout India or Africa, they weren't just updating maps," Paiman wrote. "They were restructuring the conceptual frameworks through which people could relate to their own territories." Trump's order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America is perhaps the best-known result of Executive Order 14172, titled 'Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.' The renaming sent mapmakers, search engines and others into a flurry over whether to change the name. And it set off a legal dispute with The Associated Press over First Amendment freedoms that is still winding through the courts. The news outlet's access to events in the Oval Office and Air Force One was cut back starting in February after the AP said it would continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its copy, while noting Trump's wishes that it instead be renamed the Gulf of America. It's unclear if Trump's name will stick universally — or go the way of 'freedom fries," a brief attempt by some in the George W. Bush-era GOP to rebrand french fries after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But there's evidence that at least for business in some places, the 'Gulf of America' terminology has staying power. Chevron's earnings statements of late have referred to the Gulf of America, because 'that's the position of the U.S. government now,' CEO Mike Wirth said during a Jan. 31 call with investors. And along the Gulf Coast in Republican Louisiana, leaders of the state's seafood industry call the body of water the Gulf of America, in part, because putting that slogan on local products might help beat back the influx of foreign shrimp flooding American markets, the Louisiana Illuminator news outlet reported. The racial reckoning inspired by Floyd's killing rippled across the cultural landscape. Quaker retired the Aunt Jemima brand after it had been served up at America's breakfast tables for 131 years, saying it recognized that the character's origins were 'based on a racial stereotype.' Eskimo Pies became Edy's. The Grammy-winning country band Lady Antebellum changed its name to Lady A, saying they were regretful and embarrassed that their former moniker was associated with slavery. And Trump didn't start the fight over football. Democratic President Barack Obama, in fact, told The Associated Press in 2013 that he would 'think about changing' the name of the Washington Redskins if he owned the team. Trump soon after posted to Twitter: 'President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.' Fast-forward to July 20, 2025, when Trump posted that the Washington Commanders should change their name back to the Redskins. 'Times," the president wrote, 'are different now.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Kuwait Times
an hour ago
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
Native American groups slam Trump call to bring back Redskins name
'These mascots and names do not honor Native Peoples - they reduce us to caricatures' WASHINGTON: Two Native American groups on Monday condemned US President Donald Trump's threat to block a new football stadium in Washington, DC, unless the local NFL team restores its old and controversial Redskins name. In Sunday posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump said there was 'a big clamoring' for the team, which has been called the Commanders since 2022, to revert to its former name and that 'our great Indian people' want it to happen. Trump also urged Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians, who changed their name from Indians in 2021, to follow suit. But some Native American groups slammed Trump for pushing for a return to what they called harmful names. 'These mascots and names do not honor Native Peoples - they reduce us to caricatures,' the Association on American Indian Affairs said in a statement. 'Our diverse Peoples and cultures are not relics of the past or mascots for entertainment. Native Nations are sovereign, contemporary cultures who deserve respect and self-determination, not misrepresentation.' After decades of criticism that the name was a racial slur, the Washington NFL team in July 2020 retired the Redskins name and logo - featuring the profile of a red-faced Native American with feathers in his hair - that had been in place since 1933. The National Congress of American Indians said it opposes any effort to revive what it called racist mascots that demean Indigenous communities, calling it 'an affront to Tribal sovereignty.' 'For seventy-five years, NCAI has held an unbroken voice: Imagery and fan behaviors that mock, demean, and dehumanize Native people have no place in modern society,' NCAI President Mark Macarro said in a statement. Because Congress retains oversight of DC under its home-rule law, Trump could try to influence federal funding or approvals tied to the stadium, but he lacks direct authority to block it. Congress, controlled by Trump's Republicans, also has the power to override decisions by the Democratic-dominated Washington, DC, City Council, though it rarely exercises this authority. The team, which has been in suburban Landover, Maryland, since 1997, reached an agreement with the District of Columbia government in April to return to the city with a new stadium expected to open in 2030. The White House did not respond to a request for further comment on Trump's post. The Commanders and NFL also did not respond to requests for comment. While some groups oppose the Commanders returning to the former name, the Native American Guardians Association said it supported Trump's desire to bring back the Redskins name. 'The Native American Guardians Association stands with the President of the United States in the call to return common sense and sanity back to our nation,' the group said in a statement. 'Virtually all Americans, to include American Indians, are fed up with cancel culture.' The Commanders have won three Super Bowls and are one of the NFL's marquee franchises, ranked by Forbes last year as the league's 10th most valuable franchise at $6.3 billion. Many American professional and collegiate sports teams have Native American-themed names. Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves, the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and NFL's Kansas City Chiefs have said they have no plans to change their names. – Reuters
New York Times
2 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Jayden Daniels, Commanders maintaining an internal hunger amid 2025 expectations
ASHBURN, Va. — It took mere seconds for Jayden Daniels to supercharge Washington Commanders training camp with a jolt of electricity as last season's Cinderella team took the field for the first time. On the very first play of team drills, Daniels — the 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year — surveyed the defense, sent his running back in motion, took the shotgun snap and dropped the ball over the shoulder of a tightly covered Deebo Samuel for a 30-yard touchdown. The connection between the second-year quarterback and one of Washington's high-profile offseason acquisitions served as a sign of things to come, as did the next two offensive possessions, which saw Daniels continue to execute with precision. Advertisement Daniels and the Commanders have a long way to go before they're regular-season ready. They badly need to resolve the contract dispute between perennial 1,000-yard receiver and two-time Pro Bowler Terry McLaurin, who remained away from the team for a second straight day. New additions like the star-studded trio of Samuel, offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil and pass rusher Von Miller remain in the acclimation stages, as are members of a promising rookie class led by first-round offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr. and second-round cornerback Trey Amos. But there's a buzz radiating from this team and permeating throughout the DMV area. Thanks to a string of electrifying last-minute regular-season victories, an improbable march to the NFC Championship Game and this offseason's high-profile roster upgrades, Washington will not sneak up on anyone this season. The team has legitimate outside expectations for the first time in decades. If not handled properly, those expectations can lead to crippling pressure. However, Commanders players say that maintaining an internal focus on growth will help guard against that. 'You take it day by day and focus on what you can control,' said Daniels, who last season passed for 3,568 yards and 25 touchdowns while rushing for 891 yards and six more scores as he directed one of the most prolific offenses in the league. 'And that's (asking), 'How can I get better each and every day? How can I help lead this team and, you know, even advance myself more within the offense?' … If it was easy, everybody would be able to do it. So it's obviously easier said than done.' As coach Dan Quinn put it, 'Last year we came up with some standards that we want as Commanders. This is our 'Commander Standard.' It was written by the players, so we really see the expectations, you know, being external, but the ones that we have are internal. These are the standards that we want to go after. So we definitely recognize there could be a narrative or a voice outside, but the truth of it is, internally, our standard of what we want to do and how we want to get down, that's way more powerful. And we're fortunate that we're able to rely on those standards, as opposed to an expectation which comes from the outside.' Advertisement Last season, Quinn's philosophies and methods helped set the tone for a badly needed culture change within what had long ranked among the most dysfunctional franchises in the NFL. He and his assistants stressed the importance of consistency, accountability and daily competition. Meanwhile, Daniels served as a major catalyst for the Commanders' on-field success while shining in offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury's system. But while drawing on experiences of that rookie campaign, Daniels also knows 2024 is a thing of the past. By now, every defensive coordinator Washington will face has spent hours dissecting the quarterback's game, pinpointing every strength and weakness. So, evolution is necessary. 'The coolest thing is, he had a really good season last year, but I don't think he's satisfied with where he's at,' linebacker Bobby Wagner, one of Daniels' closest teammates, declared. 'He has a chance to be a really, really good quarterback, and you can see that in the way he prepares, the way he's locked in. He's ready to go.' Daniels said he spent the offseason working to improve his footwork, movements in the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield while eluding defenders. He also has worked to further strengthen his understanding of defensive concepts, something for which he believes Miller — just as Wagner has since joining the team last year — can serve as a resource. 'To be able to ask questions — obviously (Miller) won a Super Bowl, too — so you want to be able to be like, 'What do you see on this? Or what are you looking at when you try to time with the snap?' Stuff like that. So just be able to pick their brains, because obviously their careers are self-explanatory.' 2️⃣4️⃣@VonMiller | #RaiseHail — Washington Commanders (@Commanders) July 23, 2025 For now, despite not having his full arsenal, Daniels is working to develop chemistry with a revamped offensive line and timing with Samuel and other receivers while waiting for McLaurin's contract resolution. When asked about the absence of McLaurin, who has recorded five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons and is entering the final year of his contract, everyone from Daniels (who says he has maintained regular contact with McLaurin) to Quinn downplayed the matter as 'the business of football.' 'It's a business, and so some business is not your business,' Wagner, a 14-year veteran, said. 'You let them take care of the things that need to be taken care of, and you focus on yourself, but understand that he's still a part of the team. He's still somebody who is a huge presence in this locker room. He's an amazing figure in this community. … And so, you just sit there and you wait and you hope that something is done, and that's what you do. And when it gets done, you celebrate.' Advertisement Eventually, the Commanders expect to return to full strength, but until then, the focus remains the same: maintaining the hunger and standard set last season. They're well aware that they still have much to prove despite their 2024 success. 'What I'm excited about our team is everybody has somebody that's doubting or someone that says, 'You can't do this,'' Wagner said. 'That makes everybody hungry. And I think a team full of guys like that, that has something to prove and something to show the world, is a fun team.'
