The Commanders lost ground in the playoff race when they lost to the Giants 20-12 on Sunday night and quarterback Taylor Heinicke‘s play in that game led to questions about his future as the team’s starter on Monday.
Heinicke was 17-of-29 for 249 yards and a touchdown, but lost a pair of fumbles and Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux returned one of them for a touchdown. The other fumble came in Giants territory and head coach Ron Rivera said after the game that “we can’t do that” while expecting to win games.
No quarterback change is coming ahead of this week’s game against the 49ers, however. On Monday, Rivera said that the team will “stick with Taylor and what we’re trying to establish” on offense while adding that a failure to improve on Sunday’s performance will lead him to consider making a change back to Carson Wentz.
“It is something to be quite frank, I do have to think about at some point,” Rivera said, via John Keim of ESPN.com. “But if we get back on track and play the way we’ve played and do the things we’ve done, then we’ll stick where we are.”
The Commanders were 2-4 before Wentz went on injured reserve and they’ve gone 5-2-1 with Heinicke running the offense, so there seems to be a clear answer about who has led the team to more success. With time running short on the season and little margin for error in the playoff hunt, the Commanders appear to be taking a shorter-term view of the situation.