Rivera On Washington Mood: 'Euphoria'

The Washington Football Team handed the Pittsburgh Steelers their first loss of the NFL season on Monday night, and here we are on Sunday, and the victory still resonates.

“Euphoria,” coach Ron Rivera said when choosing one word to describe the feeling of a win that maybe only WFT itself thought possible. "This is something we can build off of.”

And that, of course, is the real point. WFT has been stringing together success, attention-getting success, as it has pulled itself back into the NFC East race at 5-7.

Now, "5-7'' is not usually the cause for "euphoria,'' and Rivera surely knows that feeling will prove to be fleeting if on Sunday afternoon at Glendale, Arizona, the aforementioned success does not extend itself.

The Sunday challenge is the San Francisco 49ers, forced out of their Northern California home and into the desert due to COVID ... and struggling with their own injury problems. The Niners are 5-7 - poor enough to put them in last place in the NFC West. Additionally, they are just 1-5 at home ... though with Glendale, Arizona, now serving as "home,'' who knows what to make of that.

WFT demonstrated some resiliency on Monday; they were down 14-0 early. They figure to need that here, too, as former Washington coach Kyle Shanahan is in charge of the Niners, claiming to have made peace with his firing in D.C. ... but probably still fired up to prove he was wronged.

Another Niners/Washington tie is represented by QB Alex Smith, a decade-and-a-half ago the No. 1 player taken in the NFL Draft by the Niners. Here we are, many chapters later, and Smith - along with Washington's "studs'' on defense - are giving Rivera's bunch another chance at "euphoria.''

“These guys deserve it,'' Rivera said. "We’ve been down for such a long time, and we’re trying to rebuild ourselves and build up.''

That "trying,'' that "buildup'' and maybe that "euphoria'' ... gets a chance to continue now in Week 14.