Ron Rivera entered his third year in Washington looking to find a measure of consistent, decent play at the quarterback position.
The franchise has not fielded a single starter since the 2017 season and Rivera traded for Carson Wentz this offseason hoping to jumpstart the Commanders’ rebuild after consecutive seven-win seasons that lacked a long-term answer and a solid level of play under center by adding what he believed could be the guy.
After a 1-4 start, capped by a game-ending, goal-line interception in Sunday’s 21-17 defeat, Rivera doesn’t seem any closer to finding a satisfactory answer.
Meanwhile, Washington's NFC East foes – Dallas, New York, and Philadelphia – who have all recently been going through periods of rebuilding and injuries to their starting quarterbacks, all have winning records in 2022 and seem much further along in their process than the Commanders.
When asked Monday why he thought his team was still struggling in comparison, Rivera had a blunt, one-word answer: “Quarterback.”
The follow-up question was then how does he explain Dallas, who has won four straight games with backup QB Cooper Rush starting in place of the injured Dak Prescott?
“They build around Dak, the offense is built around Dak, they started with Dak, their backup’s a guy that’s very solid inside of what they do. And the truth is this is a quarterback-driven league,” Rivera said. “And if you look at the teams that have been able to sustain success, they’ve been able to build it around a specific quarterback.”
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But Rivera chose the quarterback for this season, does he have any regrets about picking Wentz?
“No, I got no regrets about that,” Rivera said. “I think our quarterback has done some good things, I think there are a couple games that he struggled. But you look at his numbers from yesterday and he was ok. And you look at his numbers he’s had throughout the year, there was a time when he was very solid. And then we had the unfortunate Philadelphia game, he struggled a little bit in the Dallas game, but the way he performed yesterday, it just shows you what he’s capable of.
“We chose him because we believe in him. We chose him because we looked at what we felt were things that pointed towards him."
No regrets, and it sounds like no changes for the foreseeable future under center as Washington still searches for consistency.
Rivera still believes Wentz is a quarterback Washington can build around.
“Now we have a guy that we think we have a chance to build around,” Rivera said. “We had a guy in [Ryan Fitzpatrick] and he gets hurt in the first quarter and a half of the season. And so it was a little different. I just think right now we have a guy that is really growing in what we’re doing. I thought yesterday was a good indicator of his potential for us in this and we’ll continue to work with it.”
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