Rivera's Biggest Failure - Too Little, Too Late

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, raz said:

might be nice to have somebody who know's x's and o's also, instead of just having an overall vision. i just remember him from miami.   

That's more the coordinator's job than the head coach's though, and a lot of coordinators who are great at X's and O's make lousy head coaches.

I can tell you this much: I check out rising coach and GM prospects On an annual basis (it's kind of a hobby) and Campbell is one of the more intriguing ones I've run across. I'd seriously love for the Panthers to be the ones that give him his opportunity.

The Panthers rarely go with who I want though, so... 

[Mr. Scot]

5 minutes ago, AggieLean said:

Ron sees himself in all of his coaches. He felt all he needed was a chance or a shot, and he’s going to give his staff that same opportunity, and make sure they’re not done the way he felt he was done. 

This works if your crew is good. If not, you got what’s happening now. Eric Washington wasn’t ready to be a DC. It will be EW, his defensive staff, and Ron’s inability to notice the weak link sooner that will cost him. 

That's a pretty good analysis, and I think it extends to players also.

Rivera has always loved "try hard" players. That's honorable, but sometimes those guys may give it all the effort in the world and still just not be good enough.

It might suck to elevate the more talented a--hole over the good guy who's giving it his best, but if your primary goal is to win games, sometimes you have to do that.

Just ask Sean Connery.

[Moo Daeng]

He recognized it but to a fault he gave Washington the opportunity to fix it.  It didn't work and this will likely cost his job.  I have no issue with him being patient. It's the exact words Tepper used to explain the most important thing he learned in Pittsburgh. So paitience and loyalty won't get him fired. It not working in the end though likely will. 

It's time for a change. I'm more interested in who Tepper turns to to make football decisions for him at this point.

[Chief Keek]

That's the epitome of Ron's career as a HC. He says the right things but his actions always tell another story.

[Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D.]

Damage to the frontal lobe often results in what is called executive dysfunction.  This results in mental rigidity or the inability to be flexible with steadfast rules in different situations.  It also leads to problems with multitasking and monitoring performance.   

I am not saying Ron has a concussive syndrome,  however,  these are very complex thought processes often thought to be affected by head trauma.  

I'm just here to stoke the flame.

[Toomers]

   There is nothing, on the defensive side of the ball, that I don’t attribute directly to Rivera during his tenure. Which is why he needs to go. His philosophy has went from “safe” to idiotic. Before the legit complaints were that we lined up CBs off 10 yds and gave up short passes. NOW, we line them up off, play outside leverage, with NO SAFETY In deep middle, or any help inside. That’s DAY ONE stuff. 

  The lack of attention to the Safety position since he was hired is sickening. I don’t blame the GMs.Rivera is the common denominator. If he wanted a Safety, either GM would have gotten him one. We have 4 safeties on the Roster. One ancient box safety,at best. One OLB, One rookie who in limbo, and Colin Jones. 

  And if Hurney hadn’t talked him into a different type CB, Dontae Jackson would have never come close to this team. 

  

[Mr. Scot]

Does Rivera actually have any history of head injuries though? I don't remember seeing anything about it in the bios I've read.

Granted, it's possible. Unfortunately, it's also possible that he's just not that bright.

[Carl Spackler]

Most coaches are like Rivera in their steadfastness and refusal to make major changes. He's more of the majority than the minority. His issues here are the fact that he hires his buddies and doesn't can them when they suck. Washington is just the coaching staff's Byron Bell.

[CPF4LIFE]

Honestly, this has been 8 years worth of incompetents by Rivera. Lets not kid ourselves. Its a long list.

[electro's horse]

This is from an article about andy reid, but it really speaks to the way ron sees himself, i think.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/11/15/andy-reid-coaching-tree-doug-pederson-sean-mcdermott-ron-rivera-matt-nagy-steve-spagnuolo-john-harbaugh

I remember asking Andy, ‘You know, you never fire anybody. Why?’ He said, ‘Ron, two things. First of all, I hired you. If I think something’s not going well, I’m gonna work with you, I’m gonna train you and give you every opportunity to succeed. If I don’t do that, it’s on me, it’s my fault.’ So he gave us this book on teaching, it’s a little book on teaching. And in it, there are little things about the progression of learning, the progression of teaching, you teach everything from the core, from the base. Like a tree, everything grows up, you’ve got a firm foundation and then it branches out. That’s how I look at coaching, from having read that book.

Ron sees himself as a coach to the other coaches, and their failures a reflection on his ability to teach them. 

Of course Andy Reid eventually got fired too.

[Carl Spackler]

That even sounds like Rivera

[ncfan]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Igo said:

Everyone remember just after the Pittsburgh game when the entire Huddle was calling for Eric Washington's firing and for Ron Rivera to take over play calling? The worst defensive performance in nearly two decades and zero action was taken afterwards. 

Fast forward a month, and the moves the fans called for was exactly what was needed to improve the defense as evidenced in Tampa Bay. A month, and entire month. The Panthers lost 3 more games in that span while the defense continued to look like a shell of its former self. 

If the fans recognized this all season long, why on earth did it take Ron Rivera until December? 

He either could not recognize what every casual fan could see, or he was not capable of making the tough decisions that head coaches must make. Either way, it ain't great news. Neither a great look for a head coach. 

In my opinion, this will go down as the biggest failure of the 2018 season and likely will cost Ron his job. 

His biggest downfall of his whole career is his being Too loyal to his guys.

I honestly believe that he wouldn't even fire Shula.  Just look how long it drug out before he fired him.  It wasnt until national stories about the fan base raising money to fly banners over the stadium.

Even all the way down to the players.  It takes more talented guys like Moore or Samuel, injuries to the struggling vet starters, just to get on the field

[panthers55]

I am sure Ron knew there was a problem after Pittsburgh and surely after Detroit but he likely tried to fix it without firings or demotions. He became more involved and tried to salvage Washington if possible. When it was clear that wasn't going to happen he did what he did. Yeah it was likely too late and might spell his doom but I can surely understand why he wouldn't take the same type of knee jerk overreaction frequently advocated by casual fans or the huddle.

[MasterAwesome]

Yeah that Steelers game was a sh&$-show for our defense, but that was a Thursday night Away game against one of the league’s best offenses...firing him after that would’ve been an incredible overreaction. To us fans, it definitely looked like something was off with our defense during the season but they really weren’t bad statistically and Washington is a brand new D coordinator. That would be like hiring a new Head Coach and firing him midway through the season for a mediocre 4-4 or 4-5 record after a blowout. The defense (and team as a whole) had performed admirably against Baltimore and Tampa in back to back weeks, despite our usual late-game efforts to let teams come back by being conservative.

At this point I’m more than happy with firing Washington because our team has fallen off a cliff largely because of our defense, but you can’t say rationally that he should’ve been fired under those circumstances after the Steelers game when our team was 6-3.