New Commanders uniforms include alternate 'Hail Raiser' featuring spear on helmet

• The Washington Commanders have updated their uniforms, blending past designs with a new look.
• A new all-black alternate uniform, the "Hail Raiser," features a black helmet with a new logo.
• The alternate logo intertwines the team's "W" with a spear, reminiscent of a 1960s helmet design.

Given its political nature, the Washington D.C. area is certainly prone to a cyclic rhythm. Apparently, that also applies to its NFL team's uniforms.

After dabbling with a throwback look in 2025 that all but reinstituted the team's aesthetic from its Super Bowl glory years, when the Washington Commanders were known by a now-acknowledged racist nickname that they ditched in 2020, they further re-embraced their past − mostly − with another update April 15.

The team described its new uniform closet as "a collection that fuses the franchise’s storied past with a bold, modern identity. The refreshed lineup reintroduces Super Bowl-era sets while debuting a bold, new alternate look, the 'Hail Raiser.'"

And it's that "Hail Raiser" that might garner the most attention − and maybe support from the team's longtime fans. It replaces the Commanders' all-black alternates with another black motif, though one that replicates the team's classic get-up in terms of the striping and jersey number fonts. The main distinction comes with the black matte-adjacent helmet, which now sports the trio of centerline stripes and a new logo − the Commanders' W intertwined with a spear that calls back the team's logo from 1965-69, which was similar to Florida State's.

While the spear doesn't replicate the insignia from 2019 and earlier, it's definitely a callback − and it remains to be seen if Native American groups that largely decried the former nickname object anew. The club also updated the crest that debuted with the rollout of the Commanders brand in 2022 by adding two crossed spears behind it.

The new uniforms mean the team has had basically 10 versions (not including various jersey-pants combinations) since 2020, when the murder of George Floyd compelled the team to drop its former nickname, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as an “insulting and contemptuous term for an American Indian.” Prior to 2020, many Native Americans and others had lobbied the team to scrap the name, but previous owner Daniel Snyder told USA TODAY Sports in 2013 that, “We'll never change the name. It's that simple. NEVER – you can use caps."

However Snyder, a highly controversial and widely despised figure for nearly the entirety of his 24-year stint as owner, ultimately relented before selling the team under pressure to a group led by Josh Harris three years ago for more than $6 billion.

The Commanders did explicitly attempt to redefine the new spear's meaning within the current climate.

According to the team, "The inclusion of the spear and its sharpest point – the spearhead or 'tip of the spear' − symbolizes the top fighters, the front lines, those leading a mission who are unafraid to step into the fire. This alternate logo is a joining of past and present, with the spear and the W interwoven at their center. These all-black 'alter egos' convey a stealth quality exhibited by elite units in battle and embody the identity of the Commander: a leader of warriors."

Otherwise, the Commanders' home and road uniforms are basically the ones worn primarily from 1979 until the nickname change in 2020 − the "W" logo on a much glossier helmet being the primary exceptions. There is also a new set of yellow pants with the familiar two-tone stripes down the side.

Between the 1982 and '91 seasons, Washington won the Lombardi Trophy three times in four Super Bowl appearances. The new uniforms will continue to evoke memories of Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, John Riggins, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and many others.

The club played as the “Washington Football Team” in 2020 and ’21 before a somewhat botched rollout of the Commanders rebrand under Snyder in 2022. Local reception to the new nickname, which is meant to tie in with the region's vast military community, has been lukewarm, many fans still wearing gear with the former logo or even the interim WFT garb instead. Many also bemoaned the previous all-black uniforms as too similar to those worn by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Harris definitively stated last year that the club’s former name − many fans (and President Trump) prefer it even if it is a slur − won't return. Head coach Dan Quinn sparked a brief sensation in 2024 by wearing a T-shirt featuring the contemporary W logo sprouting a feather similar to the one on the old emblem.

But Commanders will remain the nickname moving forward.

"Now, in this building, the Commanders means something. It's about players who love football, are great at football, hit hard, are mentally tough and great teammates," Harris said last year. "It's really meaningful. That name is growing in meaning.

"As far as rebranding and bringing our past – which obviously I grew up with, and all the Super Bowl championships – and our future together, you're going to see us move back toward honoring our past and bringing it together with our future."

The future is now in D.C.

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