Commanders Clean-Up: Coach Ron Rivera Not Happy About Recurring Defensive Problem

With a three-game winning streak in tow, the Washington Commanders' coach is not ready to overly celebrate his team's efforts just yet.

The Washington Commanders came away with a 17-16 win over the Indianapolis Colts this weekend. 

If you watch the game or look at the stat box, you'll likely come away with the impression the Commanders' defense did everything possible to secure the win. 

And there were certainly some positives, as pointed out by coach Ron Rivera during his postgame press conference. 

"I loved the plan, I really did," Rivera said of his defense. "We played a lot of five-man fronts...I thought changing some things up and making it look different and doing some of the things that we were doing in the past, I think really helped."

The five-man front was interesting, and as an observer, we like it whenever we see coaches and coordinators folding new looks into their system and the season and opponent calls for it. 

We also appreciate a coach who understands that even when things are going well, it's important to maintain a winning standard. 

Which makes Rivera's later comments about his defense even better than the first. 

"There's a couple of things that really were disappointing," Rivera said about his defense. "We had an opportunity on a couple of those third downs to shut them down and we had a couple guys doing their own things, and that's crap. We're not going to have that. We're going to get that corrected."

It's fine for fans to get lost in wins. Simply be happy with another notch in the correct column, and seek out the positives. 

But a good coach will find the potential pitfalls their team avoided this week, to make sure they don't reappear in contests coming up. 

"At the midway point in the season you'd like to think we're going to do what we're asked," Rivera said on Monday in his day-after press conference. "When guys did their own thing, it hurt us...if you've got ten guys doing their job (and) one guy not, (opponents are) going to find that one guy."

Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard of this. 

In 2021, similar comments were made and largely tied to defensive end Chase Young who has yet to return from the knee injury he suffered last November. 

Young obviously wasn't on the field in Week 8, so these issues aren't on him but are a sign of a growing issue within the defense. 

A group that's already seen the firing of one position coach and obviously isn't winning over their head coach.

Not because Rivera isn't happy with his Commanders winning football games. 

Rather, winning alone isn't enough when the methods used to achieve it will surely poison future efforts.

You can follow David Harrison on Twitter @DHarrison82.

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