Danny Rouhier was flying solo on Tuesday, a short show due to Nationals baseball, so it was up to him to react to the news of the day: Ron Rivera revealing that Eric Bieniemy’s intensity has rubbed some players the wrong way, and Bieniemy having to defend his style.
Of course, Danny used almost all 90 minutes of his broadcast (minus the time dedicated to Nats Leadoff) to discuss it, but the crux of his own take was this: it was, at best, poor form by Ron Rivera, and at worst, typical Commanders.
“What is he doing? How could he run Eric Bieniemy under the bus like this?” Danny asked. “Eric handled it with grace in his follow-up, a guy who has been through the ringer in this regard with other comments in the past. But, you now are forced to have these conversations, and there are a number of things to pick out.”
Number one: the reference to Jack Del Rio knowing how to relate to players.
“Del Rio, you know the guy I fined for saying something I didn’t like? He’s the one who relates to players because of his experience!” Danny said as Rivera. “This is, at worst, the beginning of a cover your ass approach if things don’t work out – it’s like, ‘he’s too much of a hard-ass for these guys, I don’t know, I’m doing the best I can with him,’ like you didn’t pick the ingredients. If the offense isn’t good, there’s your thing we’ll bring up. I can’t believe Ron Rivera said that.”
Number two: Nicki Jhabvala’s follow-up question, perfectly asked, about the guys coming to Rivera thinking Bieniemy was 'riding them too hard,' brought about a slight change of heart answer.
“They were just a little concerned was his response…can you imagine the complacency, the sense of arrival for a team that last had a winning record in 2016, and that was 8-7-1?” Danny asked. “This group has been pedestrian at best, bad at times, and at worst, horrendous, while watching opportunities crumple by the wayside. And the guy that came from the winning program, the guy that they put over as their savior for getting this offense up the rankings, 1A to Sam Howell’s No. 1, is wrong?”
And then, Danny railed on the fans, and the organization, too.
“People say defense wins championships? Cool, I enjoyed 1984 too. Grow up. This is an offensive league, the Nos. 1 and 2 offenses in the league last year met in the Super Bowl, and the best corollary for how good your team is going to be is how good your offense is,” Danny ranted. “Sometimes you get an outlier like Tennessee a couple years ago, but the best predictor for success is how many points you score – and this group has been 20 points shy of legitimacy in terms of rankings. They need to average another touchdown per game to be relevant. They're putting over Eric Bieniemy six ways from Sunday, can’t wait to tell you when it’s good…but this has been a hallmark of the org for a long time: bring in a savior, trot him out as the greatest thing ever, but when things start to sour a little bit, the hero’s not exactly what we thought and has to figure things out. Unbelievable we’re here this early.”
Danny would have handled it a lot differently, as you could imagine.
“The answer, by the way, is pretty simple. If you have any accountability, or sense of ownership of this thing, it goes like this: we haven’t been good enough. Being okay and ‘good enough’ ain’t good enough,” Danny said. “We’re trying to be great, and we brought in somebody from a great organization in an attempt to change things. If you don’t like it, suck it up, and figure it out. Grow a pair, work harder, win more football games. If you’re coming off back-to-back Super Bowls and a guy is riding you in August about some minutia, flash him the ring, Cadillac on a rep or two, sit out a practice if you feel like. You’ve earned it – but what have you earned here?”
So what should have Rivera said, if anything, about it all?
“Rivera should have said ‘we’re giving EB a lot of autonomy, he comes from a winning program, and we are allowing him to put his imprint on it. Guys are going to have to get used to it. Thank you, next question,’” Danny said. “Instead – ‘guys were a little concerned’? EB doesn’t have the experience of a Jack Del Rio? Man, tough to listen to that.”
Take a listen to Danny’s entire rant above, which includes the actual Rivera audio!
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