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Leadership, ron rivera, and the variable rigidity of discipline

PhillyB

By PhillyB,
in Carolina Panthers

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PhillyB Grand Master

PhillyB

Posted
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Ron Rivera's shit stinks. We all know it, the whole team knows it, the whole fanbase knows it, even Ron Rivera knows it. You can see it in his poke-hole eyes as they glower off into some other dimension where the bubonic plague looking acne scars on his cheek aren't better play callers than Mike Shula. So since there's no point in prefacing this post with the obvious, there are two competing thoughts on what happened tonight:

(1) Cam Newton didn't bring his tie on the plane. Whatever, you keep the discipline in-house.

(2) Cam Newton didn't bring his tie on the plane. Whatever, you don't bend the rules for one player.

 

Let's address both of these points even though one of them is laughably retarded for reasons I will explain. First, point number one, which is not retarded. I would like to point out that JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER IT'S A FUCKING TIE. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?! I thought maybe he wore a hashtag fire Shula shirt or nut checked a security guard like that fake Bleacher Report tweet suggested. But it was a TIE. That's stupid enough. Even stupider than getting legit mad about it is benching him for it. Even stupider than benching him for it is benching him for it during a primetime game when he's already constantly taking media heat and you know this move will bring an unholy shitstorm down onto your football team. And even stupider than all that is taking your MVP off the field when you're still in the playoff hunt against a hungry team, a traditional foe, and sacrificing a shot at the playoffs to make some sort of a point about the way things are done around here. This is such a staggering exposure of Ron's lack of judgement and composition as a coach that there are few choices besides kicking him out of the plane over Idaho with a parachute and a bag of chips.

But let's humor the second argument for a second. It's actually completely true. It's a fact that you don't bend the rules for one player. That creates locker room division. No one actually disputes that.  Anyone who's taken intro level sociology courses in college knows institutionalization is necessary for the development of teamwork, and institutionalization can't happen if one guy's treated preferentially. But that is a bullshit argument because the issue is not the crime, it's the punishment.

Ultimately it's Ron Rivera not knowing when to back off. And sometimes you do back off. You have to. Ten or so years ago I was in Marine Corps OCS up in Quantico in the world's most intensive leadership school, surrounded by elite drill instructors whose personal mission it was to pound discipline and code into a bunch of soft ass braniac college kids trying to be hard asses. If there was ever a place you don't fuck up and forget your tie (or muzzle control or your fucking compass, jeebus that was a bad day) it's officer training in the Marines. Not a dumb football game. But even in OCS the drill instructors had the wisdom to know there are times you back off of rigid disciplinarian structure for the betterment of the group. There were times when tensions ran high (dropped candidates, silver bullet, OCS version of the crucible) when the DIs backed off of the billy badass routine even if it was warranted because they had the wisdom to understand they'd lose more respect by enforcing something petty at a very bad time than they'd gain authority points for being ticky-tack. In fact they often gained respect and promoted group cohesion by knowing when not to enforce things that they had the right to enforce whenever they wanted.

Ron Rivera doesn't possess that wisdom as far as I can tell. To this point his only real outstanding strength as a head coach was his ability to develop a team's intangibles and manage its locker room, but this evening he compromised even that en route to dishing us a head start on our only blowout loss of the season and knocking us out of the playoff running against a hated rival.

Goodbye Ron.

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stankowalski Newbie

stankowalski

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Meh...he only took him out for one play.  Kind of messed up how that play went though lol.  I'm not going to get into whether or not it was the right thing to do because frankly I don't think we'd have won that game under any circumstances with all the injuries to key positions and key players.  

All I know is this season stinks.

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Proudiddy Grand Master

Proudiddy

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I know teams shouldn't be wrapped up in headlines and all, but what made it that much worse for me as a fan was seeing ol' Dick Sherman on Gameday Live after the game saying, "a lot of our fans weren't happy with some of the things Cam did last year, so I know a lot of them are happy with what happened tonight."

fug you Sherm.

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Mr. Scot Grand Master

Mr. Scot

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If I'm looking at the consequences, I just have a hard time buying that there'd be some major revolt in the locker room if Newton went unpunished for not wearing a tie. 

I don't buy that the Panthers locker room is that petty, and if it were, we'd have larger issues.

But even if I did believe that would cause a ruckus, I have a hard time believing it'd be a bigger mess than the result of that first play.

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