Coach Rivera from League Meetings | Episode 1

now up in DC? Yes? Because every time I call back home and talk to my kids, all I hear is that it is freezing out here. Yeah, sometimes it's not bad to be the head coach and have to come down to these things in West Palm. Beautiful scenery here at the Breakers. Have you stopped and pause though it all yet? No? You know, I'm on the competition committee. So I got here and I hit the ground working. We started on Sunday and we've been going ever since.

What do you get from being on the competition command I know you've quite a few years now, like why take that step and what does it take? What do you get from it? Well? I really do believe it's about you know, trying to help and better the league and create positive situations for the NFL. UM. One of the things I do take from it is is I get an insight into the rules, get a better feel

for those things. I think that helps me. UM. I think it it for us in terms of what we try to develop and help with more than anything else. Is you know, like right now we've got the whole thing with the inclusion, you know, trying to make sure that people are getting opportunities, UM, you know, to be coaches, to be um to be front office people in this league, and we want to make sure it gets opened up

to everybody. As a minority coach, yourself as having one of the first females on your coaching staff, I guess the new rule wants to have a minority or a female that works with the offensive coordinator. Do you believe that that'll work? Is this a good step in the right direction? Well? I do think it's a good step in the right direction. Will the work Only time will tell. But you know what we've seen and everybody realized recognize it that one of the quickest pipelines to get advancement

this league is through the quarterback position. So if you're coaching that position, if you're coordinating on the offensive side, you've created probably the best pipeline for people to get chances to take the next big step. So yeah, I hope it works. I believe it can. But right now, only time will tell us what would this mean internally

for Washingtons. You already have Jennifer King there and I know when we first brought her and you said you wanted her to learn multiple rooms before she just kind of got that permanent position with the running backs. Could this be an elevation for her? Maybe something else? Um, it's probably gonna be something else. Um. You know we're gonna get We're gonna get Doug involved. You know, we've thought about this for a few weeks to be honest, when we first got wind of it, and so we

started mapping it out. I sat down with Jason and Doug and we talked about how can we best find the best suit of candidate for that position. And we're gonna we're gonna continue to finish, you know, that process that we are. We're going to start pretty soon again. It's all about taking those steps because something needs to be done for sure, and that's where it happens kind of right here. Um, do you find this Is it friendly environment for you or is it like, wait, you're

my competition. I didn't like that play that you pulled on us. That's a little bit about little both. I mean it's pretty friendly for the most part. And you get an opportunity meet a loz you guys. I mean it's hard to put a name to a face because you know, we didn't get a chance to interact the last couple of years, and there's been a lot of changeover and that's really kind of the nature of this business. So getting an opportunity to meet guys, see guys spent

a little bit of time with him as cool. Do you guys talk about the moves made in free agency, because it seems like this free agency it was a little bit of the march madness compared to most very much.

So we have we a lot of guys have talked too at Guys have talked about you know, why did we do this or you know we had to do that, and you sit there going wow, you know, the cap is right now having a major impact on a lot of decisions that we make as a league and as teams, and and and you know, we went through the same thing. You know, we get Carson Wentz m. Carson's salary obviously is what it is. It does have an impact on

our salary cap. It does impact how we view players, and what we have to do now is figure out and work on best ways to get some of our other players taken care of. How much when you watch was kind of going on in free agency, does it impact your plan and can you anticipate like some of the salaries going some high and some of the key players moving as they are, and that's exactly what happens. You have to anticipate how it's going to impact not just this season, but the next season, in the season

after that going forward. So you really got to make decisions that are going to impact your future. And you know, when you make a play like we did and we bring a Carson in, it does change our plans because one thing that we always looked at was let's find a guy in, let's draft him and then build around that.

And with the players coming out of this year's draft and everybody's strong need for a quarterback and us picking at eleven, we felt one things we really had to look at is trying to obtain a veteran guy, and that's what we did in grabbing Carson. You told me heading into this time period that getting a quarterback was the number one priority and you had your options. So you go out and you get Carson. What is that next step? What is the next priority to be able

to address here? Well, I think the biggest thing, Julie, is to make sure we have the offensive people in place. Can we protect him? Do We got to make sure that that offensive line is four to fight and we're going to continue to look at that to make sure we do have the right pieces in place. Didn't this about the playmakers? Do we have enough playmakers around him?

You know? Will those guys coming back from injury be ready to play for us once we get into the into training camp and then get into the regular season. So we've got to look at all those things to make sure that that fits our offensive attitude, our offensive philosophy, and our offensive scheme. You have the draft coming up, eleventh overall pick, and I've been out to a couple

of Pro Bowls as well. I imagine free agency and those moves again are shifting what you might want to do in the draft where are you in your plans and kind of knowing what you want to do with that spot in the six picks you have overall, Well, the biggest thing as we've gone through all these pro days is really getting a closer look at some of the guys that we've targeted, and quite honestly that several have gone to There's been a couple of guys that

have stood out that we did have some questions about and feel really good about. So and we're not done. I'm going to hit the road again once we we we finish up here tomorrow, I'm gonna take a couple of days and then we'll be hitting the road again. You said three to five years to change the culture, you're now entering year three. Where are you from where

you anticipated and expected this team to be? Well initially are Initially when we finished seas, Julia I was a little concerned obviously because we hadn't had a quarterback question answered yet. Coming out of this past week, feeling pretty good about where we are, feel very comfortable, very confident, and who Carson Wentz is and who we believe he can be for us. So we're pretty excited about that. So, um am I where I believe we can be now

I do. I feel pretty comfortable, pretty confident. We've just got to make sure we make some really good decisions in the next month and a half and going forward, wish are the absolute best. It's uh, you're doing all the work. We just sit back and watch, looking forward to see where this team does go in year three with you, so hopefully you get to enjoy a little bit of West Palm Beach. Almost not all meetings locked inside. No they're not. They're not, Julie, But thank you all right,

thanks co for my full conversation with Coach Rivera. Be sure to tune into Washington Football Today weeknights, five thirty and ten pm on NBC Sports Washington. And while you're at it, be sure to follow us on all of the Commander's social media platforms for the latest on the team.