Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy guaranteeing a win over the Washington Football Team is being met by scorn from his counterpart in Sunday's tilt, Ron Rivera.
The Washington coach told Julie Donaldson of the team's official website that he thinks McCarthy's comment is a gaffe.
"I think it's interesting. I don't think it's important," Rivera said. "I think that's the big mistake, because as far as I'm concerned, you do that for a couple of reasons. One is you want to get in our head. And so I've told our players, 'That's interesting, it's not important. What's important is our preparation, getting ready to play on Sunday.' Secondly, he's trying to convince his team. So, again, I think that's another mistake. Because he's now made it about him and what he said, it's not about his players anymore. So I think that's a big mistake. That's why to me, you don't do those things. What you do is you focus in, you get ready, and you play football. We show up on Sunday, and we'll see what happens."
McCarthy responded Friday to Rivera's comments, telling reporters that any reaction to his earlier statement was "irrelevant."
"I was talking about my team. I always coach my own team. That's where I'm at with it," McCarthy said, per The Athletic's Jon Machota. "We have great confidence in what we're trying to do. It was an honest answer to a question from a great group of people."
Rivera will use McCarthy's "we're going to win this game" quote to fuel his team's emotions ahead of Sunday's pivotal NFC East matchup. The back-and-forth brings added spice to one of the NFL's best rivalries and a matchup that will have overarching ramifications on the NFC playoff race.
The Cowboys (8-4) hold a two-game division lead over Washington (6-6), with the teams set to square off twice in the next three weeks.
The last time the teams met in December with both .500 or better records was in Week 17, 2012 -- a 28-18 Washington win.
Sunday marks the first of five straight division games to end the season for Washington. The Cowboys have division games in four of their final five matchups.
