Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera on Friday issued his most direct rebuke to New York Giants coach Joe Judge after comments Judge made that were deemed to be directed at Washington.
“This ain’t a team that’s having fistfights on the sidelines,” Judge said after Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears. “This ain’t some clown show organization.”
Rivera, speaking on the Kevin Sheehan Show, said this:
“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.”
Earlier in the week, Rivera had been more conciliatory when asked about Judge’s apparent shot at his team.
“Well, it’s interesting. It is. And again, I’m not going respond to something that’s interesting, but what’s important is we play on Sunday,” Rivera said. “I got tremendous amount of respect for the Giants organization. The Mara’s and the Tisch’s are quality people and do a great job with their organization. As far as I’m concerned, we play on Sunday.”
Judge has denied that his “fistfights on the sidelines” comment was directed at Washington, or any other team in particular.
“I was asked a specific question about what the fans are asking and I responded to it. People ask me a direct question, I give direct answers,” Judge said. “Whoever’s listening is going to get a dose of the truth and I was honestly answering to the question to the fans – that’s what the question was asked for – but, obviously, the response can apply to a number of different areas.”
