New owner Josh Harris is expected to make changes after the 2023 campaign

Multiple sources tell CBS Sports that managing partner Josh Harris is inclined to keep Ron Rivera through the end of the regular season, but it is widely assumed that he will not be retained as head coach and the ostensible chief of football for the Commanders after the 17th game of the year.

That means there will be a search for a head coach, and very possibly a general manager, in Washington this offseason. And both jobs are thought to be among the most attractive in the NFL.

A Rivera dismissal at the end of the season would create the possibility of more traditional roles for head coach and GM, and that could lead to Washington getting a new general manager, too.

“Everyone’s shooting for Washington,” one personnel executive said of the Commanders not-vacant GM position.

Washington has a healthy salary cap situation, good draft picks and an ownership group that — admittedly not even a half-year into its rule — appears competent. There’s an allure to a job in Washington that hasn’t been there for a quarter-century.

Considering Harris’ background, a league source tells CBS Sports that any candidate with an open-mindedness to data and analytics will likely be a plus.

Teams have replaced offensive coordinators during the season about twice as often as they have defensive coordinators. This season, three teams have fired their offensive coordinators — the Las Vegas Raiders’ Mick Lombardi, the Buffalo Bills’ Ken Dorsey and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Matt Canada — and two teams have changed their defensive coordinators. In addition to Del Rio, the Chicago Bears’ Alan Williams resigned in September.

But changes on the defensive side appear to have had more of a positive effect, according to some performance metrics.

From 2010 to 2022, just eight teams had multiple defensive coordinators in a season while maintaining the same head coach. In only one instance (the 2012 Philadelphia Eagles) did the team’s defense regress significantly in major statistical categories, per TruMedia. For the most part, replacement defensive coordinators helped their units improve. Most teams held opponents to fewer yards per game and allowed fewer points after an in-season change, in addition to tallying a better average defensive expected points added.