Ron Rivera’s refusal to call late-game timeouts is maddening

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to answer,” Rivera said after Washington’s loss at Cleveland, when asked why, for the second consecutive week, he didn’t use any of his three timeouts to stop the clock as part of trying to get the ball back in the fourth quarter of a two-score game. “I did what I did. Like I told you guys, my concern is about the development of this football team, not appeasing anybody that has an opinion. Okay? I’m going to do what I need to do to help this football team.”

Okay, it’s one thing to suggest, as Rivera has, that Washington’s success this season should be judged more by the team’s development than wins and losses. But it’s quite another to admit to throwing in the towel in the fourth quarter against the Cardinals and Browns.

“You know, there’s a philosophy that [Rivera] has, and it just depends on the coach’s philosophy,” Fox analyst Chris Spielman said during the Browns’ game-sealing drive on Sunday. “I just have a different opinion. I never walk off the field holding timeouts. … I’m not saying I’m right or he’s right, it’s just different philosophies.”

You should have said you’re right, Chris.

Let’s review the past two games. In the fourth quarter of Washington’s Week 2 loss to the Cardinals, Antonio Gibson’s touchdown run cut Arizona’s lead to 27-15 with 6:38 remaining. Washington had moved the ball well on its previous two drives, and six minutes is more than enough time for an improbable comeback; just ask the Atlanta Falcons. Surprisingly, Rivera opted not to use any of his three timeouts on Arizona’s ensuing possession, allowing the Cardinals to burn more than six minutes off the clock and ice the game with a field goal. Why?

“I don’t want to expose my players to injury,” Rivera explained after the game. “It’s a long season. We’ve got 14 games left to play. We got an opportunity to learn and grow, and that’s probably, to me, a little bit more important right now than exposing our guys to getting injured in a situation like that.”

Washington found itself in a similar situation Sunday, trailing the Browns by 11 points after quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who had already thrown three interceptions, lost a fumble with 6:30 to play. If Rivera had used his three timeouts on Cleveland’s ensuing drive and Washington had managed to force a punt or a field goal, the offense could have gotten the ball back with enough time for a comeback to be within the realm of possibility.

Instead, Rivera pocketed his timeouts and Cleveland took more than five minutes off the clock with a 10-play drive that effectively ended the game.

“People say, ‘Oh, but you’ve got to give them a chance,’” Rivera said afterward. “Yeah, but you also gotta be realistic about what’s happening in terms of the injuries. We had no preseason to develop. You look throughout the league with the injuries right now. Once we get past a certain point, yeah [I might use my timeouts]. But right now, hey, I’m working on developing my football team. This football team is a young team that is going to learn and grow, and we’re going to learn and grow the way that I see fit for this organization.”

Okay, fine, but no team had a preseason to develop, including the Browns. And if Rivera was concerned about protecting his team from injuries in the final few minutes of the last two games, why did he call three running plays rather than just have Haskins take a knee after Washington eventually got the ball back with the outcome already decided? Why didn’t he pull most of his starters?

“I have respect for him as a man and a coach and as a guy of accomplishment, but he is so far out on the branch of wrong and stubborn on this, it is inconceivable,” radio host Steve Czaban said Monday on The Team 980. “He is right now in Zorn-ian territory of, ‘What are you doing?’ I am not kidding on that. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m being honest. He’s saying these are our preseason games or our exhibition games and I don’t really care if we lose them. It’s unprecedented to say this, and it is tactically obtuse.”

Former Washington tight end Chris Cooley played for Jim Zorn in 2008 and 2009, and while Cooley couldn’t save the burgundy and gold the embarrassment of the “Swinging Gate,” he wouldn’t have allowed Zorn, or any coach, to get away with not using his timeouts with the game still within reach.

“If I’m an older player and it gets down to about three-and-a-half, four minutes, I just go and call time out,” Cooley said Monday on the “Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast. “I’ll walk out there and call a timeout. I’ll walk back over to the sideline and say, ‘Someone’s going to love to pick me up next week, Ron, after you cut me, because they see that I actually care about winning a football game.’ … I just don’t understand. They are not completely out of this game, okay? They’re not.”

To be clear, Rivera using his timeouts almost certainly wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the last two games. Plenty of fans and pundits seem content with Rivera’s explanation about protecting his players from injury by not prolonging the game, and former Washington cornerback Fred Smoot offered the following defense of Rivera on Sunday’s radio postgame show: “What would he call the timeout for?” Smoot said. “We’re bad.”

But even if you’ve given up hope on winning the game, it would seem a good way to get better would be to expose your young players to game situations in which the defense needs to force a three-and-out and the offense, led by a second-year quarterback, has to score quickly. If you’re concerned about injuries, send in the backups and have the quarterback take a knee.

Rivera’s actions in the fourth quarter the last two weeks don’t make much sense, unless you accept that he’s trying to lose, and Washington’s comeback from 17-0 down to beat the Eagles in Week 1 would suggest otherwise. The Athletic’s Joe Posnanski, who said he respects Rivera “a great deal,” wrote this about his “ultra-weird philosophy” and “surrender” against the Browns: “It looked an awful lot like tanking to me, but, hey, like I say, maybe Rivera has a great plan I don’t understand.”

Maybe. Rivera, who won a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears as a player and coached the Panthers to an NFC title, took another stab at describing that plan when his timeout management came up again during his Monday news conference. He expressed no regrets for his unconventional approach thus far, and made it clear he doesn’t much care what others think about it.

“My thought process is developing this football team with players that are going to be here for the foreseeable future,” he said. “I don’t want to expose those guys in these circumstances and situations right now. It’s tough, I get it. Using timeouts may have given us more time with the football, or what it may have done was given [the Browns] an opportunity to grind it out even more after they take a 30-second break.

“Again, I’m concerned about this football team and this football team’s development. I’ll make decisions that I believe are best for us going forward, and I’m going to stand by it. That’s just the way I look at it right now. This is a young football team that I have to protect, that I have to make sure is being developed, and I’m going to do it the way I think is best.”

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