Washington’s season is over because Ron Rivera still can’t figure out QBs

The Washington Commanders are done, and it’s because coach Ron Rivera couldn’t get out of his own way.

Washington was the seventh and final NFC playoff team until Rivera decided to go with Carson Wentz at QB last week for a pivotal home game with the miserable Cleveland Browns, and Wentz threw three picks in the 24-10 loss that eliminated the Commanders from playoff contention.

The 26-6 domination of the playoff-bound Dallas Cowboys on Sunday is little consolation for Washington fans, whose team was the first to get a win over the top NFC seed, Philadelphia.

The Commanders also beat the eventual AFC South champ, Jacksonville, back in Week 1, one of the two wins that Wentz had as the starter in what will surely be his only season as the starter in the nation’s capital.

After Wentz, who was acquired in the offseason in a trade with Indianapolis in which the teams swapped 2022 second-round picks, went down to a finger injury in his other win as the starter, a 12-7 victory over Chicago in October, last season’s starter, Taylor Heinicke, took over, and led Washington to a 5-3-1 record and had the Commanders on the verge of the playoffs.

But Heinicke found himself benched in the fourth quarter of the 37-20 loss to San Francisco in Week 16, and Wentz put up fool’s gold numbers in mop-up duty that Rivera cited in his decision to go with Wentz behind center for the Browns game.

Wentz wasn’t active for the finale with the Cowboys, with rookie fifth-round pick Sam Howell throwing for 169 yards and a TD, and adding 35 yards and another TD on the ground.

The win was more about the Washington defense, which held Dallas to 182 yards of total offense.

Heinicke is a free agent, and the final two years of Wentz’s deal are not guaranteed, leaving Howell as the only QB under contract for 2023 at this early stage in the offseason.

At this writing, Black Monday – the name given to the Monday following the conclusion of the NFL regular season because of the number of coaches and general managers are fired – is basically to an end, and Rivera is still employed.

Which means we get a Year 4. Wonderful.