Ron Rivera Details How Commanders LOST To Bears On Thursday Night Football I CBS Sports

But how do you explain what happened tonight? Well, slow start, first and foremost. We did not come out and slow them down. You know, it's something we gotta take a long look at and kinda understand why, more so than anything else. I mean, we're gonna watch the tape. We'll look at what we need to do better. You know, it starts at the top. I mean, you know, we've gotta be better in this part. That's on me, you know, in the position to be successful. Defense keeps having to break down the last several games. How do you go about fixing that group? Well, you know, we gotta look at the rotation of players, look at what we do, and make sure, like I said, we're putting them in position to be successful. The explosive plays we have, is that a secondary thing? Is that a not generating pressure thing? What's going on there? Well, I think some of it is just missed opportunities. Sometimes it's not about going after the ball as much as it's securing the tackle. I mean, these are all things that we're gonna look at and talk about, and we have a little time to do that now. It's the fourth week that you guys have allowed at least 30 points on the defense. What changes can you make? Well, we'll see. I mean, I'm not gonna sit up here and talk about those things until we get an opportunity to break the tape down, go through the tape, sit down and talk with staff, and then go from there. Is there any part of you that's just kind of dumbfounded by the defense, and kind of what has happened over the last few weeks? Well, you know, there's reasons why things happen, and you look at those things, and those are things that, you know, we have to correct. And Sam Allen, generally, how do you think he played? I thought he had his moments, you know, and it was unfortunate we didn't get anything going early on in the first quarter. It was kind of tough to get in a rhythm for him. And, you know, then we got a nice little rhythm going, and, you know, we didn't sustain it. You know, we turned the ball over. If you turn the ball over twice, that's a tough thing. Brown, I know it's the NFL, and everybody's capable, but it's one thing, you know, the Eagles are prolific offense. The Bills are prolific offense. The Bears have not been a prolific offense. No, but that quarterback's been very solid. The quarterback had a very good week last week. He showed what he was capable of. He's shown it before. He did the same thing to us last year. He gave us fits. He's a heck of a young football player, you know, and, again, sometimes he got, you know, he'd get hot, make some plays. He's probably one of the really good receivers in this league, and D.J. Moore, somebody I'm very familiar with. And they had a solid running game, you know, and when you have that kind of rhythm going, it's tough. It really is, and you're right. This is the NFL. Everybody's capable, and that's exactly what happened today. Do you think your guys were, I don't know what the word is, you know, they think, to get off to a start like that, I mean, they didn't punt the first half. No, and that was disappointing. You know, as I said, it's something we got to take a long look at and start with ourselves. Terry didn't have a ton of targets. I'm assuming he maybe was in and out of the lineup a little bit, but was there any issue with him? No, there was no issue with Terry, and again, you know, a lot of it goes through the progression of what the routes are. I guess from the slow start perspective, this is kind of every game except for the last one, you guys have had that, this is always a big confusion in the league in general, why does slow start seem to keep happening? Other than just saying it falls on you and everybody, what can you say about coming out that way? Well, you know, we had a couple third down situations early on that we didn't stop them, and it kept their drives alive. With Emmanuel, it looks like you guys benched him, what was kind of the thought process? Well, the thought process was he was struggling, and, you know, we were hoping that he would bounce back from last week, and, you know, we just felt at that point it was time to make a move. And after Buffalo, you said that you really wanted to see how the team responded. Does a game like this kind of wipe out any of the progress that you guys made last week? No, it doesn't, because they came out in the second half and they still fought, they still played, played all the way on up until, unfortunately, when we missed a field goal. Take three more. What do you say to the team after a game like that in the locker room? You know, I can't repeat exactly what I said, but for the most part, it's just, that's not good enough. You know, it's not good enough. It starts with me, and we're gonna go back and look at a lot of things, and we're gonna get some things corrected, and we'll go out and we'll play football. Does having a little extra time here with Thursday night, does that give you a chance to maybe look at more wholesale differences than you would if it was a regular week? Yes, you know, but again, we've gotta go through this, and we'll take our time, and we'll really look at it. Right. When you say, it starts with me, you got 10 days, do you evaluate yourself? Absolutely, we evaluate everything. All right, thanks Coach, appreciate it. We'll have Howell at the podium, locker room's open. All right, so, Commander's co-owner, Magic Johnson, had this to say. Tonight, the Commanders played with no intensity or fire. We didn't compete in the first half, and got down 27 to three, heading into halftime. It was too big of a hole to climb out of, and that is why we ended up losing 40 to 20. I love the simplicity of Magic's tweets. They're just so, they explain everything so clearly. There's really not a whole lot of analysis there. There's just sort of like an observation. An elevator pitch. It's like, we were down, and we lost, and the sky is blue. Thanks, Magic.