Commanders HC Ron Rivera says change has to start 'at the top' after loss to Bears: 'It's not good enough'
The Washington Commanders got blown out of their building Thursday night, getting walloped 40-20 by the previously winless Chicago Bears.
“It’s not good enough,” head coach Ron Rivera said after the loss, per the official transcript. “It starts with me and we’re going to go back and look at a lot of things and we’re going to get some things corrected and we’ll go out and we’ll play football.”
Everything went wrong for Washington on Thursday. The offense couldn’t get going early, with the club getting down 17-0 before the Commanders generated their first first down. Sam Howell tossed an interception, and Logan Thomas fumbled. The defense got eaten alive by D.J. Moore and Justin Fields, allowing 451 total yards. And for good measure, the special teams got in on the action with a Joey Slye missed field goal just as Washington threatened to make it a game in the fourth quarter.
“We’re going to watch the tape, we’ll look at what we need to do better. It starts at the top,” Rivera said. “We’ve got to be better and that part is on me. Then we got to make sure we’re put in a position to be successful.”
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The pressure is on Rivera to quickly turn things around after Thursday’s loss. With a new ownership group taking over in 2023 and the fanbase’s positivity on the rise, Thursday night’s loss was a reminder that the on-field product still has strides to make to be consistent contenders.
One of Washington’s limited ownership partners, Magic Johnson, took to social media to assess the dreadful outing.
Tonight the Commanders played with no intensity or fire. We didn’t compete in the first half and got down 27-3 heading into halftime. It was too big of a hole to climb out of and that is why we ended up losing 40-20.
Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin called Johnson’s comments a “pretty fair assessment.”
“It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. It’s what you put out there on the field. I know we don’t have a lazy bunch. I know we don’t have a non-intense group of guys,” McLaurin said, via The Associated Press. “That showing is not reflective of us, but that’s who we are — we put that on tape.”
Last Sunday’s overtime loss to Philadelphia conjured the belief that Washington could compete with the top-shelf clubs of the NFC. Thursday’s ugly defeat, however, was two steps backward.
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