Washington Wins in Rivera & Chase Young's Debut

The Washington Football started off as poorly as you could and somehow they exerted their will over the last 30 + minutes and won their opener.

Landover, Maryland

The Washington Football Team did everything wrong for almost an entire half and then they suddenly woke up, stopped beating themselves over and over again and decided to beat the Philadelphia Eagles here at FedExField. 

The final score was 27-17 and the WFT starts off the 2020 season at 1-0. 

It's the first win for Ron Rivera as head coach of his new team after the most tumultuous offseason in franchise history, and that's saying something. 

"One thing that I tried to focus on is that we've gone through a lot and things have been tough," Rivera said after the game in his video conference with reporters at FedExField. 

"They stuck together, they didn't point any fingers, they didn't blame anybody, they just kept hammering away." 

Washington's defense racked up eight sacks on the afternoon of Carson Wentz. 

Ryan Kerrigan had two of those sacks while tying and then breaking Dexter Manley's all-time franchise mark for sacks at 91. Ironically, Kerrigan wears No. 91. 

#BoilerUp #ProBoilers https://t.co/73FxwJcPQD

— Purdue Football (@BoilerFootball) September 13, 2020

Chase Young was largely terrific in his NFL debut despite a key neutral zone infraction early in the game that extended a Philadelphia scoring drive. 

Young, the No. 2 overall pick, was officially credited with 1.5 sacks, a forced fumble and four tackles. He could have had more if not for penalties. 

He had one sack wiped away by an offsides call on Matt Ioannidis that would have been an interception by Daron Payne. He also didn't credit for a partial sack that I thought he got in on. Perhaps the NFL will change the ruling in the coming days. 

Either way, Young was very real. He seemed to have much of his success from the right defensive end spot as opposed to the left. That's more encouraging because Jason Peters is a future hall-of-famer and the Eagles were really beat up at right tackle, missing Lane Johnson. 

Washington came all the way back from a 17-0 lead where everything went wrong. 

"I'm not sure who played that first quarter for us in burgundy, but I like what they did in the second, third and fourth quarters," Rivera said. "The guys responded very well and stuck to the game plan." 

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Chris Russell is the Publisher of this site, a part of SI.com. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Washington Football Team" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621