Discussions about the strengths of the Washington Football Team heading into the 2021 season focused on the defense, particularly on a defensive line featuring four first-round picks who helped push the team to a division title last season.
That defense has not been as tough as hoped through two games, however. They were able to limit the damage to field goals for much of Thursday night’s 30-29 win over the Giants, but it wasn’t the stifling performance many would have predicted against a Giants offense that couldn’t do much right in Week One.
After the win, head coach Ron Rivera said his team was “fortunate” to get a victory and said that the defense has failed to reach the expected level of production.
“There’s too many good football players for us not to play better than what we did today,” Rivera said. “That is the big disappointment. They are good football players, but we gotta correct some things and we gotta get a real good look at that.”
Rivera said he believes the mistakes are “correctable” and they’ll need to make some of those corrections ahead of next weekend’s trip to Buffalo if they’re going to post a second straight win.