The Commanders need to make a decision about Sam Howell soon

Rather, the problem as the Commanders trudge into the final three games of a lost campaign — everyone ready for Commanders-Jets on Christmas Eve! — is that the season has always been about whether Sam Howell could establish himself as the clear starter for 2024 and beyond. It would solve so many problems if he did. Alas, with 2024 a week away, that’s murky, or worse.

Harris’s most significant upcoming moves are whom to hire as coach and personnel maven. The instructions here: Those should be two people. Please. Two people, each with a manageable job and a clear directive.

That done, the subsequent most important move by those two people — with the head of football operations having say over the coach — will be to dig into Howell’s tape and make a decision. Whatever it is — move on from him or ride with him — it has to be right. The speed of a turnaround and a return to the playoffs depends on it.

Through Howell’s first 10 games, I was in. In two months and change, he completed 66.5 percent of his passes, was averaging just more than seven yards per attempt and 278.3 yards per game, had 17 touchdowns against nine interceptions, and had shown a resilience in taking too many sacks — 4.7 a game — but still getting up and plowing ahead.

If that was the starting point, and the trajectory would be up from there, then why not take advantage of having an incumbent quarterback on a rookie deal and use significant draft capital — a probable top-five if not top-three pick — on the laundry list of other needs across the roster? It’s such an appealing option.

But as the season has wound down, Howell not only hasn’t improved. He has regressed. Blips are understandable and expected. Bad games happen to the best. This feels more like a slide, and a worrisome one at that.

Howell’s numbers over the past four games: a completion percentage of 59.4, 5.7 yards per attempt and 196.3 yards per game, two touchdowns and six interceptions, while still taking three sacks a game. Across the board, the numbers are worse. To the naked eye, it looks worse, too.

Ugh, what a quandary. Is Howell’s future — and the future of a franchise that has wandered through the quarterback wilderness for three decades — going to be determined by how he plays in a closing stretch against the Jets, Cowboys and 49ers? It kinda feels that way.

Do the Commanders still believe in Sam Howell?

Do a little exercise that might seem tired but is telling. The only stat below that might not be familiar to most people is “passing success rate,” which is a measure of the percentage of yards needed to gain a first down based on down and distance. Everything else should be obvious.

Quarterback A: 64.7 completion percentage, 6.7 yards per attempt, 254.9 yards per game, 3.6 touchdown rate, 2.8 interception rate, 43.3 passing success rate, 9.9 sack rate, 83.9 passer rating, 46.2 QBR.

Quarterback B: 65.0 completion percentage, 6.9 yards per attempt, 213.7 yards per game, 4.0 touchdown rate, 3.0 interception rate, 44.9 passing success rate, 7.1 sack rate, 85.9 passer rating, 39.9 QBR.

Can you guess who they are?

Quarterback A is Howell this year, his first as a starter.

Quarterback B — nearly the same, but slightly better in more categories — is Taylor Heinicke in 2021 with Washington, his first as a starter.

That’s somewhat damning for Howell. We know what Heinicke is — a competent NFL quarterback capable of winning an individual game but whose weaknesses will be exposed over time. Is that what Howell will become?

Statistics, of course, don’t tell the whole story. Heinicke had been in NFL locker rooms and meeting rooms for parts of six seasons before getting his chance. This is Howell’s second year as a pro. Plus, anyone who has watched the two knows Howell has the stronger arm and, therefore, the potential to make more plays down the field — even if that hasn’t really happened this season. His three longest completions of the year — 51, 48 and 41 yards — were passes to running backs Brian Robinson Jr. and Antonio Gibson.

There’s also the looming draft question. Washington’s needs are legion, starting with a left tackle but including more offensive linemen, pass rushers, defensive backs who can cover and a tight end who can change games.

Whoever is making those picks has to do so not on hopes and wishes but on emotionless analysis. In some ways, Rivera’s tenure had no initial hope because when he arrived for his first draft, he elected to stick with an unproven, incumbent second-year quarterback, the late Dwayne Haskins.

It’s revisionist history to an extent, but the fact of the matter is that sticking with Haskins led the Commanders to take edge rusher Chase Young with the second overall pick in 2020, when quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert were on the board. Before the end of the 2020 season, Haskins was cut. Midway through this season, Young was traded for a third-round pick. Those are franchise-altering errors in judgment, decisions that set the team back years.

That can’t happen again. If the Commanders wind up in their current slot, with the fourth pick — and if you’re interested in the future of the franchise, it’s unarguable a loss against the Jets is better than a win — they would have to hope that Arizona is content with Kyler Murray and Chicago is set with Justin Fields to have a shot at the top two signal-callers available, USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye. That’s a lot of hope. It might take a trade up. With needs across the roster, would swapping draft picks to climb the board be wise?

The Commanders’ final three games are largely meaningless, because the season is long since lost. But they could also change the direction of the franchise at the most important position in American sports. Maybe a general manager-to-be has already decided that Howell is the guy, or that he can’t get it done.

Oh, for such clarity. If the situation is still gray — and man, it feels like charcoal — then these three weeks will be telling. It’s on you, Sam.