Washington Football Team Reality Checks – Week 4, 2020
By Tim Payne
No. 6 – The Reality Is, “You play to win the game.”
Ron Rivera has walked a sagging tightrope in his efforts to explain his weird clock management at the end of halves and games so far this season. He has hinted at player safety and defensive fatigue, as well as offensive inefficiency as reasons for his conservative and baffling decisions to not use timeouts to extend games. But his explanations have left a lot to be desired.
Then, on Monday, in an interview with J.P. Finlay, Rivera appeared to own up to a change of heart, citing that this team is mysteriously in first place in the NFC East, and there might be a chance to fight for a playoff berth.
That’s a long shot, considering the talent differential between Dallas and Washington. But maybe that revelation is what it took to remind Rivera that for three hours every Sunday, the Washington Football Team should be playing every game to win. 165 hours a week, he can build for the future, but as Herm Edwards famously said, “You play to win the game.”
My Prediction: Washington will be playing to win Sunday. They won’t prioritize player confidence or avoiding fatigue. They won’t hold onto timeouts that could have been used to get them within striking distance. Riverboat Ron will be back.
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But that won’t change the fact that this team is just not good enough to hang with Baltimore. Expect a 27-10 loss.