The Detroit Lions are set to host the Washington Commanders in the NFL playoff divisional round. The Lions are heavily favored, as they should be. My money’s on the Lions, and not just because they’re the better team. The Commanders, formerly the Redskins, still wear the shame of their forced rebrand, and that’s no harbinger of victory.

The Commanders aren’t the only former Redskins football team around. The State of Michigan spent $1.5 million over the past few years rebranding schools with Native American mascots. In 2024 alone, $500k was spent on mostly just three schools.

The Redskins name has received the most vitriol. As of 2024, with Camden-Frontier rebranding to the “Redhawks,” all seven of the former Redskins high school mascots in Michigan have been renamed. Michigan’s Native American Heritage Fund celebrates this as a major achievement, eliminating what they call the “R-word” from school sports. 

Policing language as always, the eternal goal of the Leftist bureaucrats. Mascots that existed for a century are now a slur so unutterable that news organizations refuse to even print the word, simply because some ideologues proclaimed it offensive. No matter that some Native Americans consider the term inoffensive, it’s the loudest voices that count. This can happen with any word, by the way, and it usually does—they’ll come for the Lions next, mark my words.

This isn’t some totally organic nonprofit organization by Native Americans, by the way—the NAHF is funded by the State of Michigan’s tax revenue from gambling operations, and half its board is directly appointed by the governor. Another bureaucratic vehicle for Lansing to push social policy, under the supposed banner of the Native American population. 

That’s $1.5 million in tax dollars from the casinos that could have been spent on roads, bridges—literally anything more useful than changing school mascots that were, in some cases, 100+ years old. 

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The state has pushed for this for years. Way back in 2003, the State Board of Education adopted a resolution recommending “the elimination of American Indian mascots, nicknames, logos, fight songs, insignias, antics and team descriptors by all Michigan schools.” 

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office For Civil Rights, asking it to “issue an order prohibiting the continued use Native American mascots, names, nicknames, slogans, chants and/or imagery” in 2013. And a decade later, the State Board of Education passed another resolution recommending the elimination of Native American mascots.

Eventually they put some money behind it, and school districts folded under the pressure. In many cases, alumni balked at the name changes. Decades of history, shamed and negated with one stroke of a pen. 

Many still valued the traditional mascots and felt excoriated for their loyalty. They were shamed for simply rooting for their teams as they’d existed for the entirety of their history. The intentional humiliation of that isn’t easily washed away. Especially with sports teams, which exist on the sustained support of their fans—changing the name, and telling the fans they were wrong to ever like it, is no way to maintain a fanbase.

This is exactly what happened to the former Washington Redskins franchise, of course. Three-time Super Bowl Champions! Shamed and excoriated by the mobs of D.C. liberals, former owner Dan Snyder first removed their name altogether in an act of total humiliation. (Remember the “Washington Football Team”?) Two years later, after Snyder was practically forced by the league to sell the team, the new owners made the team the Commanders.

The Washington Commies. Bit on the nose, if you ask me. They should have a hammer and sickle for their logo. If their shade of maroon was a little brighter red, they’d even resemble the colors of the USSR. I wonder what branding agency made a few million dollars for such an absolute nothing of a rebrand. Imagine the trauma that the fanbase went through. Who now, in their right mind, remains a diehard Washington Commanders fan?

The thing is, you can just say “no.” Several Michigan school districts have just ignored these dictates. Simply thumbed their noses and kept their original mascots. Which is a lesson for all of us in how to handle the demands from these sanctimonious, holier-than-thou apparatchiks. Let them waste their breath, and just say no. I’ve never been there, but catch me rooting for the Chesaning Union Indians next year!

Just look at my Buffalo Bills (yes, I’m originally from Buffalo, I’m a Bills fan, see you Lions fans in the Super Bowl). Second smallest market in the NFL, with a notoriously loyal, rabid fan base, known for smashing tables with their own bodies and sacrificing themselves to the pit for a Bills win. Buffalo is a proud city, and our team shows it. 

There was never even a thought of changing the Bills’ name, despite being named after Buffalo Bill, the famous cowboy, showman, and Western frontiersman, decorated with the Medal of Honor for his exploits fighting Indians. The Bills are too iconic, too beloved. It would have been unthinkable. 

The loathsome Kansas City Chiefs weathered the storm of wokescolding as well. Many demanded that they change their name and stop doing the “tomahawk chop” during games at Arrowhead. 

Turns out, you can just ignore the mob. Which is precisely what the Chiefs ownership did, along with their loyal fanbase. No name change, no shameful humiliation—cope and seethe, haters. They’ve even won a few Super Bowls since then. Mahomes and Kelce are on every damn commercial. The refs don’t seem to mind their politically incorrect name either! 

If we give them an inch, the mob might start coming for the Lions. Lions aren’t native to Michigan, didn’t you know? Lions are African, and endangered! Cultural appropriation, they’ll cry: Stop oppressing the sub-Saharan Africans, who hold the Lion sacred. Save the Lion mascot for the newest NFL expansion franchise in the Congo. 

The Detroit Loons, that’s what they’ll become. That proud Michigan bird. That’d be too cool though, we all know they’d pick something worse, more banal, more meaningless. The Detroit “Workers” or something, in line with the Commanders’ communist branding. 

Never give in, never surrender, never change yourself when others pressure you to. Every elementary school kid learns that lesson eventually. You can’t give in to bullies. You definitely shouldn’t take their money. You have to stand up for yourself, for your history, values and traditions, and fight back. Learn from the few Michigan high school kids who’ve kept their historic names. And go Lions—until they play the Bills.

Bobby Mars is an artist, alter ego, and former art professor. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.