In the second year of the Josh Harris ownership regime, the Commanders have seemingly found their franchise quarterback in Jayden Daniels and have an excellent chance to qualify for the postseason in Daniels’ rookie year. The club also scored a big win on the stadium front.
In Saturday’s early morning hours, the United States Senate unanimously approved the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act. The legislation, which had already been approved by the House of Representatives, will become law once it is signed by President Joe Biden.
At that point, Washington, D.C. will have control of the 170-acre site upon which RFK Stadium – the longtime home of the Commanders, then known as the Redskins – sits. In turn, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser will have the opportunity to negotiate a stadium deal with the Commanders. Per Sam Fortier of the Washington Post, Bowser has made redevelopment of the area one of her top agenda items, and she wants the return of the Commanders to the nation’s capital to be part of her legacy.
The franchise played its home games at RFK from 1961-1996, during which time it won all five of its conference championships and all three of its Super Bowls. Most of the club’s stay at its current home, Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, overlapped with the generally disastrous ownership tenure of Dan Snyder.
Prior to the new legislation, the National Park Service’s lease with D.C., which was due to end in 2038, restricted use of the RFK site. Now, however, the District will have control of the site for 99 years and will be able to develop it in a mixed-use capacity, which includes the construction of a new stadium.
Although the bill itself does not contemplate the use of taxpayer dollars, it is eminently possible that a new stadium will indeed involve public funds, as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests. And while Commanders executives have called RFK the “spiritual home” of the team, and while Harris himself has acknowledged the nostalgic desire to have his club return there, any deal that Bowser and the team strike would have to be approved by the D.C. Council, which is split on the issue of whether to use tax money for a stadium.
Meanwhile, Maryland Governor Wes Moore has reiterated his desire to have the Commanders stay where they are, albeit with a new stadium. In theory, Virginia looms as a potential destination, though Fortier notes that the Commonwealth has neither a definite site for a stadium nor a mechanism to obtain public funds for such a project.
Harris has previously noted that D.C. would be the ideal location for the Commanders because it would be the most widely accepted site among the team’s DMV fanbase. In the wake of yesterday’s Senate approval, Harris issued a statement on the matter, which can be found here.
Harris would like for the team to be playing in its new stadium, wherever it might be, by 2030.
The Alabama product was selected with the 47th-overall pick in the 2022 draft. He suffered a torn meniscus in his NFL debut that kept him off the field for most of his rookie campaign. A calf injury forced him out of the lineup for the start of his sophomore season, and he got into about a third of his team’s defensive snaps once he returned in October.
