The Jack Del Rio Era in Washington came to an end on Friday following the Commanders' 45-10 drubbing in Dallas on Thanksgiving at the hands of the Cowboys. After having a weekend to think about it, Ben Standig joined Kevin Sheehan to go over the state of the Commanders' defense.
"This is officially the start of the Josh Harris era," Standig told Sheehan about the firing of the defensive coordinator, which came after the hiring of Eugene Shen to revamp the analytics department and the trading of Montez Sweat and Chase Young. "...my point is that, now these last five games are not really about the 2023 season anymore. They are about what is going to happen going forward. And that's where Josh Harris is now in the driver's seat.
"Because what matters here is things like, obviously we talk about Sam Howell a lot in determining what he is, and in his case, it's not just is Sam Howell a good quarterback – we've seen him be pretty good – now it's how does it relate to possibly having a top five or six pick or now maybe you get a quarterback. Now you're comparing [his level of play] to that threshold.
"Now you're saying, who are the building blocks for this team going forward? I don't know if there are many of them as we may have all thought when the season started.
"And then there's just basic player evaluation. Whether you're talking about Emmanuel Forbes a first-round pick or guys that are gonna give you some depth. It is all about the future, not necessarily for the players and the coaches who are gonna be on the field, but for the true organization I think this is where Harris starts over."
And that's just the jumping-off point for this conversation. Listen on the audio player above for the full conversation on Howell and his development and changing the calculus of judging his performance against that of potentially a top QB in the 2024 NFL Draft, where the defense goes from here, fixing the roster and much more!