If you thought Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera would be in a celebratory mood after his team ended a four-game losing streak by defeating the Chicago Bears, 12-7, on Thursday, you thought wrong.
It’s been a difficult week for Rivera, who had to defend himself Monday after responding to a question about why his team was behind the other NFC East teams, and he replied, “quarterback.” Rivera offered context for his answer, but it blew up and became a national story.
Rivera apologized to his team for becoming a distraction and spoke privately with Wentz, who was unaffected by the comments.
Then, on Thursday morning, ESPN released a lengthy report focused on owner Daniel Snyder. Buried deep in the report was the suggestion that trading for Wentz “was 100% a Dan move.” Rivera strongly denied that notion.
After Thursday’s win, Rivera wanted to get some things off his chest; one of those was the notion he didn’t want Wentz.
“Everybody keeps wanting to say I wanted nothing to do with Carson, well bull—-,” Rivera said. “I’m the f—— guy that pulled out the sheets of paper, that looked at the analytics, that watched the tape in the fricking….when we were in Indianapolis. That’s what pisses me off because the young man doesn’t deserve to have that all of the time. I’m sorry, I’m done.”
This came after Rivera defended his entire team for how hard they played, regardless of the results.
I applaud Rivera here. You can argue with whether he’s out of touch as a coach in 2022 from an in-game standpoint or that he’s made bad decisions as a GM or with his coaching staff, but he is an excellent leader, and it’s why the locker room respects him and continues to fight for him.
How many coaches have had to deal with as much nonsense as Rivera has over the last three years? And when you lose, the off-field stuff on top of the losing would be difficult for any coach.
It never fails that a “report” is leaked on the morning of an important Washington game or a night game. Go back and look at the history. Sure, it’s meant more to get to Snyder, but it’s not fair that Rivera and Washington’s players have to continuously deal with incidents that occurred before most of them ever came to Washington.
Rivera had enough on Thursday night, and he wasn’t wrong. Perhaps this brings his team together, and they come out stronger starting in Week 7 against the Green Bay Packers.
Story originally appeared on Commanders Wire