It was on an open line Thursday on the Junkies, and one of the topics they wanted to get into with the callers was Ron Rivera, specifically his outstanding record in November.
See, after last Sunday’s win in New England, Rivera is now 9-3 in the month of November as Commanders head coach, with two of those three losses coming in the first two weeks of November 2020…and that would be great if he wasn’t 17-29-1 in the other months.
“If you look and see what he’s done here, he was 5-4 post-bye week in 2020 and 2021, and 4-4-1 from November on last year,” Cakes said. “
“I one thing that they're basing it on is that he always starts off so poorly that relative to that, the second half always seems stronger,” EB replied. “I think that the schedule is difficult, but I do think he's in a somewhat soft part now. I think that we are deserved underdogs against Seattle, but I do think they're beatable, and then I think obviously the Giants are beatable, so he could go on a little run.”
Eric thinks that after watching Ron’s presser Wednesday, he is “weirdly confident for where they are with a losing record,” and JP doesn’t buy into a “secret November sauce.”
“I’ll give him credit: last year they were 3-1 in November, but let’s look at the games: they lost to the Vikings, then pulled off the upset against the Eagles, which surprised us all, before beating the Texans and Falcons,” JP said. “It’s so opponent dependent. Can they win in Seattle? Sure, but I'm gonna bet they don't, but they should beat the Giants.”
“We can't chalk up wins for this team against anybody. No matter how lowly the opponent is, we should have learned that by now,” Cakes said, “but I'm still kind of chalking it up against the Giants, because if you can't beat Tommy DeVito and company…you have to shut down one guy in that offense.”
“I can’t bet on them to beat a winning team until they do it,” was JP’s reply. “They can beat losing teams, but when they face good teams, they lose. “They’ve had a couple close ones, but they lose.”
The remainder of the November schedule the 5-3 Seahawks, currently 2-7 Giants, and then a Dallas team that at worst will be 5-5 if they lose to both the Giants and Panthers (so they could be 7-3) – so we’ll see.
You can hear, though, by listening above, the Junks’ full thoughts on Ron’s November magic!
