Ron Rivera at times looks a bit unemotional, perhaps even stoic on the sidelines, but Friday on the Kevin Sheehan Show (The Team 980 AM) Rivera opened up, responding to New York Giants coach Joe Judge’s comments this week.
When asked about his Giants team struggling down the stretch, Judge shockingly responded, “This ain’t a team that is having fistfights on the sideline. This ain’t some clown show organization or something else, okay?”
Friday, Kevin Sheehan asked Rivera, “Was there any emotion when you heard the swipe that Joe Judge took at the organization?”
Rivera responded, “Oh, most certainly. And to be upfront about it, it disappoints me because for somebody to make a comment like that, and not really know what 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, 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 who lost his brother to murder and then we had another player who lost another brother. There are reasons why things happen, and to take a shot at people when people are going through what they are going through, that’s not right.”
“If you don’t know and don’t understand other people’s teams, talk about yourself, talk about your own team. That’s what’s fair.”
Of course, Judge was talking about the Washington Football Team having Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne melting down during an embarrassing 56-14 loss to Dallas.
Of course, Judge was referring to the Washington organization as “a clown show” implying the team is poorly led by Dan Snyder and Jason Wright, following some really bad miscues this season (and others).
And of course, Judge attempted to see how many he could fool when he walked back those statements later, “No. I just made a comment to any outward dysfunction”.
Well, Judge didn’t fool Rivera, and it might be interesting to see if Coach Rivera directly confronts Judge about this either pregame or post-game.