Jack Del Rio Defends January 6 Tweet, Calls Insurrection a 'Dust Up'

The start of minicamp for the Washington Commanders has already been sidetracked after defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said some things on Twitter. On Monday, the longtime football coach replied to a news article about the January 6 hearings asking why the summer of "riots, looting, burning and the destruction of personal property" isn't getting the same level of attention by lawmakers, hashtagging the tweet "Commonsense."

There may be a couple players under Del Rio's tutelage who will take issue with his decision to equate the protests after George Floyd was killed to an actual attempted insurrection in which, for the first time in American history, the Capitol building was taken over by disgruntled US citizens spurred on by the sitting President. But that's his problem to deal with, along with Ron Rivera's.

Or at least it was. Now it's the whole organization's problem because Del Rio made things quite a bit worse when he spoke to reporters about it today. He obviously did not back down from what he said, stating that America is all about freedom of speech, and then called the January 6 riots a "dust up," where nothing burned down so he doesn't understand why such a big deal is being made of it.

It is important to remember that nothing can be done to convince people like this that they're wrong. Del Rio will always think January 6 was just a little scuffle, even if he's reminded that at least seven people died as a direct result of the riots.

But that's Washington's problem to deal with. Del Rio's personal beliefs about the severity of an attack on the country's government will presumably remain on the backburner unless he starts tweeting again or his players get upset about it, at which point Rivera will have a decision to make.