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Ron Rivera Responds to Joe Judge's WFT Comments: 'Talk About Your Own Team'
January 8, 2022
Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera expressed frustration about comments made by New York Giants counterpart Joe Judge that were viewed as a jab toward Washington.
Judge made the remark Sunday after the Giants lost their fourth consecutive game, a 29-3 blowout defeat to the Chicago Bears, to drop their record to 4-12.
"This ain't a team that's having fistfights on the sidelines," he told reporters. "This ain't some clown show organization or something else, OK?"
Some viewed that as a shot toward Washington after Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne were shown in an altercation on the sideline during the team's Week 16 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Judge has denied that was his intent with the comments.
Rivera was asked about the situation Friday during an appearance on The Kevin Sheehan Show (via MSN's Ed Valentine) and said he believes Judge should focus on his own team because he doesn't understand the context elsewhere:
"To be upfront about it, it disappoints me because for somebody to make a comment like that and not really know the circumstances of the situation we've gone through. I mean for goodness sake you know if you pay attention to what's happening you would have found out that we had just had one of our most popular players [Deshazor Everett], a guy that's very popular amongst his teammates, was in a terrible car accident where his longtime girlfriend is killed. We had another player [Montez Sweat] who lost his brother to murder and then we had another player who lost another brother.
"There's reasons why things happen, and to take a shot at people when people are going through what they're going through, that's not right. If you don't know and understand other people's teams, talk about yourself, talk about your own team. That's what's fair."
Washington (6-10) and New York (4-12) both entered 2021 with high expectations in what's typically a wide-open NFC East race. Instead, Dallas (11-5) ran away with the division title and the Philadelphia Eagles (9-7) also made the playoffs out of the NFC East.
So the exchange between the coaches adds a little drama to Sunday's regular-season finale between the Football Team and the Giants, which have both been eliminated from playoff contention.