The Washington Commanders looked like an unprepared team and put out a lackluster and underwhelming performance in Thursday night's beatdown at FedEx Field. After falling behind 27-3 at the half they would go on to lose 40-20 to the previously winless Chicago Bears, who got their first win in 14 games dating back to last season.
Despite the uninspiring play on both defense and offense, Commanders head coach Ron Rivera announced in his press conference on Friday that there would be no changes to the coaching staff at this time.
"No. No," Rivera said when asked about making a change after the Week 5 defeat. "We've got 12 left to play. There's plenty of football left and we haven't had an opportunity to finish working on the things that I talked about last night. We still got several things to go through."
When asked after the game on Thursday if the extra time off during the mini-bye before traveling to play in Atlanta in nine days, the head coach said the added break would allow him to consider changes "to a degree." He added: "But, again, we've got to go through this and we'll take our time and we'll really look at it."
Does that include evaluating his own performance? "Absolutely, we evaluate everything," Rivera said.
Jack Del Rio, who is in his fourth season as defensive coordinator in Washington, has been the main target of speculation over his job security after his defense allowed 30 or more points for the fourth week in a row.
"Well, I'm a little disappointed, more so than I am surprised," Rivera said Friday of the defensive struggles. "I just think that some of the things that we do is we have to play with a little bit. more discipline. We're going to stop trying to do more than we need to do and do our jobs.
"Probably the basic thing that goes to it, and as I said, we're taking a look at some of the things that we're doing with them. Are we truly putting them in the best position to make plays? That's the thing that we have to look at and go through the next day."
Rivera closed his press conference by addressing Washington fans, saying that "we let them down."
"I'm disappointed that we let them down and like I said last night, a lot of it begins with me. I'm the head coach and I got to make sure that when we get out there we're doing the things the way we need to get them done. And obviously. we didn't," he said. "That's on me to begin with. We'll get those things corrected. We're a young team. We have some young players that we're trying to develop and get them out there and doing the things we need them to do.
"Every time we play though, we're going to play to win. We're going to give them our best. Sometimes our best isn't as good as it needs to be. We got to get those things corrected and that's the truth of the matter."
Listen to Rivera's full press conference on the audio player above.