Ron Rivera: The only way to learn to win is to play to win

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The Washington Football Team could have tied Sunday’s game against the Giants after a Cam Sims touchdown catch with 36 seconds to play, but head coach Ron Rivera wasn’t interested in going to overtime.

Rivera opted to go for two, but Kyle Allen threw an incompletion after being flushed from the pocket and the Giants held on for their first win of the season. The 20-19 loss is the fifth in a row for Washington, but Rivera believes the call was the right one for his team because “the only way you learn to win is to play to win.”

“I’m trying to get our players to understand this is how we’re going to do things. We’re going to do things to the max. We’re going to play to win football games. It’s going to bug me because we lost,” Rivera said, via 106.7 The Fan. “It’s going to piss me off. I want to win football games. I don’t care this is my first year. I don’t care we have young guys that have to learn. We’re trying to teach them. We’re going to teach them and they’re going to learn how to win. And the end of the day, that’s what we’re here for.”

The best way for Washington to win games will be to do more during the first 59 minutes of a game than they did against the Giants this weekend. They were able to rally from 10 points down to tie the game at 13 and shut the Giants Offense out over the final two-plus quarters, but Allen lost a fumble on a sack that Tae Crowder returned for a touchdown shortly before Sims’ touchdown.