Trademarks are just not words, they're wordmarks (text styles/logos)as well. This is how a team like the Lions, Eagles or Cowboys with more common words as team names can still trademark their name, or the WAY their name appears.
Someone could take a gray t-shirt and print "Cowboys" in cursive, not resembling the team wordmark at all and probably legally get away with selling it as long as they never call it a "Dallas Cowboys" shirt or use their logo. But, once they use
or the team's star logo...violation.
Make sense?
This is the reason that the team's trademarks can never be taken away.
They own
and
.
The images and the specific usage of the name.