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The dream that fans of struggling sports teams often have but typically don’t experience—a new owner buys the franchise and quickly turns it around—is improbably coming true for the Commanders, putting the long-forgotten organization back in the national limelight.
Washington shocked top-seed Detroit 45-31 in the NFC divisional playoffs Saturday night, marking by far the biggest NFL win for second-year Commanders owner Josh Harris. With that upset victory at the Lions’ Ford Field, the Commanders have achieved key milestones:
- The team’s first appearance in the NFC title game since the 1991 season, when just five current Commanders had even been born. Washington will face Philadelphia on Sunday for a trip to the Super Bowl.
- The second playoff victory of the Harris era, equaling the number of postseason wins in the embattled, 24-year tenure of former team owner Dan Snyder. Both of those Snyder-era wins were in the wild-card round.
- An “it” factor drawing a celebrity fanbase that includes NBA superstar and Washington-area native Kevin Durant, actor Matthew McConaughey, and racing legend Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.
There are many key figures involved in the resurgence of the Commanders, including the stellar play of star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels and the first-year football leadership of head coach Dan Quinn and GM Adam Peters. Harris, however, has helped instill an entirely different tenor to the organization since his record-breaking $6.05 billion purchase of the team in July 2023—departing significantly from the near-constant turbulence and friction that marked the Snyder era.
“For everybody to put this together, this team, in really a year, it’s phenomenal,” said former Washington coach Joe Gibbs, who led the franchise to all three of its Super Bowl wins in the 1980s and early 1990s, and then had a less successful comeback effort more than a decade later under Snyder. “To get a win like that on the road, it’s really hard, [but] gives you great confidence. [It’s] just fantastic for everybody.”
The Commanders are a 5.5-point underdog to the Eagles in the upcoming conference title game at Lincoln Financial Field, part of a South Philadelphia sports complex being remade, in part through the NBA’s 76ers and Harris, also the lead owner of that team. Ticket demand on the resale markets for the NFC clash, however, is robust, with low-end, get-in pricing beginning at around $600 per seat—roughly twice the comparable figure for the AFC championship game between the Bills and Chiefs.
