Darrell Green says he can fix Emmanuel Forbes in 10 minutes. Ron Rivera says he can get this football team over the hump.
Eight weeks into the NFL season, it’s obvious at this point who will actually be doing the fixing: New Commanders owner Josh Harris, next spring.
Sunday’s 38-31 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles made clear what has been largely assumed for some time now, that this is the final season for Rivera and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio.
There’s no reason to make a rash midseason move. The players are still competing hard for Rivera, who has handled a near-impossible assignment with poise and dignity. Not only that, there’s a plausible path to a wild-card playoff appearance for this edition of the Commanders (don’t laugh, I’m serious).
But Harris and company didn’t pay $6 billion to get close to contention, and one fateful minute of football showed that this staff won’t be the one to reach the next level.
Late in the third quarter, with the Commanders protecting a seven-point lead, the Eagles threw a pass to DeVonta Smith on fourth-and-4. The official signaled for completion.
The Commanders’ bench players, standing about 20 feet from the scene, immediately started screaming for a challenge, that Smith hadn’t secured the ball.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts did exactly what he’s coached to do — hustled to the line and threw a quick incompletion to lock in the result of the play.
Rivera was asked about the non-challenge after the game.
“We hadn’t seen a replay yet, so we weren’t sure,” he said. “Then they did their hurry-up, ran up to the line and snapped the ball. You almost think in that amount of time somebody could have looked at it and saw if it was incomplete.”
Coaches are often too willing to part with their challenges, but given the stakes of the play (fourth down) and the reactions on the field, it was a high-leverage moment, exactly the kind the challenges are made for.
Three plays later, Del Rio took his turn.
Forbes, who had been on double-secret probation for most of the last three weeks after getting torched by A.J. Brown in Philadelphia, returned to the field — matched against Brown.
Hurts didn’t even bother looking elsewhere. He uncorked the touchdown pass.
“He’s had a couple of really good weeks of practice, good work,” Rivera said. “It was a personnel grouping that we used where we knew we would be able to give him some help, and that’s credit to them.”
The coach added: “That’s part of the balance, and you watch the young man compete and do the things that we’re asking him to do. And he’s gonna get better. He’s got the skill set. So we’ll just continue to work with him, continue to push him to help develop him and get him ready to play.”
Forbes does have the skill set, and will likely play many years in the league. But bringing him out for that situation, against that receiver, didn’t do him any favors.
(Green, an NFL legend at defensive back, offered this up pregame: “Truthfully, I can help him in 10 minutes. 20 minutes. I’m gonna cross a line that I know I’m gonna cross — he’s not getting the help he should get. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.”)
The talent seems to be there for the Commanders, but the consistency remains maddeningly elusive.
The Eagles twice tried to throw the Commanders a life raft on Sunday, coughing up the ball inside the 3-yard line. Offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy tried his best, injecting some life into the offense with quick throws designed to get quarterback Sam Howell rolling. Joey Slye certainly did his part, booting through a 61-yard field goal before halftime.
Howell’s first half was as good as he’s played all season, and provides hope that the season’s biggest measure of long-term success — turning him into an NFL quarterback — could still end well. He ended the game with a career-high 397 yards and four touchdowns.
“It’s still early for him,” Commanders running back Antonio Gibson said. “He’s been in there confident, stepping up in the pocket still, making plays. I feel like today, man, he was on it. He was going through all his reads. He was comfortable, making the right passes. He gave us a chance today.”
But defensively, it’s getting late early for a group that’s been together now for nearly four years.
An inconsistent season shouldn’t be judged only by Sunday’s game, but it’s another data point that a group that was built to contend hasn’t been able to get to that level.
“To win a lot of games in the NFL you need to play all four quarters,” cornerback Benjamin St.-Juste said. “It doesn’t matter if you come out hot in the first half or three quarters or all that stuff.”
Washington is still working on that consistency. And as the clock ticks towards Harris’s first judgment day as owner, that should be cause for concern.
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