Washington Football Team: Ron Rivera did himself zero favors in postgame presser

The Washington Football Team sits at 2-5 through seven weeks following their 14-point loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

It’s not the result fans were hoping for, but it’s fair to say that there were a lot of positives (or moral victories) from the game.

After all, Washington, despite capitulating in the second half, gave the Packers all they could handle over the first 30 minutes.

Had the Football Team not shot themselves in the foot in the third quarter, it’s reasonable to assume this would’ve came down to the wire. Alas, it didn’t and Ron Rivera’ squad suffered its third-straight defeat.

Despite the loss, Rivera gave his team a huge pat on the back in his postgame presser, awarding the players’ fight and character.

Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera is a huge advocate of moral victories for some bizarre reason.

"“I love the fight in these guys,” Rivera told reporters. “There’s no quit. They played hard. And that’s all you can ask for as a coach — that your guys come out and play hard and give themselves an opportunity.”"

Come on, man. How do you drop your third game in a row and be fully pleased with the way your players performed? We get it, alright. Washington put up a good fight in the first half. They out-gained Green Bay by well over 100 yards and the defense made Aaron Rodgers’ job as difficult as it could have hoped.

However, the Washington Football Team still lost the game.

Is effort really all Rivera can ask from his players? To show up and leave everything on the field? No way. That should be the bare minimum for any professional team that has pride, let alone the reigning NFC East champs.

Maybe demand more out of the offense after it came away with ZERO points on FOUR different trips inside the red zone on Sunday. Washington got inside the five on two of those trips and failed to come away with any points.

How about a little accountability? We’ve been saying it all year, and (if you couldn’t tell) we’re starting to get annoyed we keep having to repeat ourselves. Jonathan Allen, arguably the team’s best player from the game, spoke like a true leader of men and called Washington what they truly are: phonies.

"“Defensively, we’re close. Offensively, we’re close,” Allen said. “As a team we’re close, but the good teams make the plays that we’re not making right now.”“So we’re what, 2-5?. Then that’s just who we are. Losing teams find ways to lose games, and winning teams find ways to win games. And right now, we’re finding ways to lose.”"

We’re not asking Rivera to go up and down the roster and eviscerate every player that made a mistake on Sunday. However, throwing a moral victory party after a two-touchdown defeat is straight-up embarrassing.

Rivera’s comments had a lot of truth behind them. Washington played until the whistle on seemingly every snap. Taylor Heinicke recovered a DeAndre Carter fumble nearly 30 yards downfield from where the play started. The effort was there. As we mentioned earlier, though, that should be expected.

The fact Rivera had to go out of his way to commend the team’s grit is a bad look. We’re they not playing with top-notch effort before this game? If they weren’t, that’s an indictment on the head coach as much as anyone else.

Sometimes, things are better left unsaid.