Observer article regarding Rivera/GM

[Sword]

As crazy as this sounds, instead of the GM picking the coach..maybe Rivera will help decide who the GM is if he is staying. Instead of the GM wanting "their guy", maybe Rivera needs "his guy" and Hurney wasn't working(I have 99 RB's but I don't use one).

[Achilles]

In my opinion, Fowler got it right today in his blog. Rivera is staying.

This is as clear a sign of what is going on as I've seen. JR is not the kind of guy to just leave a head coach flapping in the wind. Obviously, the GM search is #1 on his list. That tells me that a quick change at HC is not happening. Rivera likely saved his job with excellent game planning and execution and closing out games in the last month of the season. Wins against Atlanta, San Diego, and New Orleans looked good. 3-3 in the division is not bad. Cam is progressing. The defense looks decent.

We could have been 9-7 if we had only pulled out the first Atlanta game and Chicago. We could have been in playoff contention if we had won just one more game. The KC, Seattle, and Dallas games come to mind.

There were a lot of coaching issues in the first 6-7 weeks that were definitely troubling. But we did trend up toward the end of the year and that was the criteria for keeping Rivera. You can look at our opponents and say they were garbage. You can look at the fact that we only really started winning when we had nothing to lose. Those are valid points.

But at the end of the day its just the Ws that matter. We went from 2 to 6 to 7. Trending up!

JR is right to be more worried about the GM based on the upcoming combine, draft, and cap situations. Rivera has one more year. I can live with that. I wouldn't mind them looking at a new OC.

[Herbert The Love Bug]

If Rivera was going to be fired he would have been fired after the season. Richardson wouldn't wait an entire week to talk to him and then fire him. That makes no sense.

[frash.exe]

yea Rivera's going to be here coaching this september

I'm alright with that as long as we get a good GM who knows what he's doing and doesn't leave the signing bonus field empty for the player to fill in himself when drawing up a contract extension

[Lumps]

RIvera was never going anywhere. Just wishful thinking.

JR will hire a GM who is agreeable to this and really anything else. Similar to Hurney. Or I suppose everyone could take a 180 and do things differently than they have for a decade+, but I would be suprised.

I expect the best people to be put in place. If it's Rivera so be it but no other opion has higher expectations.

The guy I do question is Chud...are we really keeping him?

[Marguide]

We could have been 9-7 if we had only pulled out the first Atlanta game and Chicago. We could have been in playoff contention if we had won just one more game. The KC, Seattle, and Dallas games come to mind.

My comment is not directed specifically at you, but whenever I see comments about how close we were in several games, I remember that it works both ways.

Case in point...our last game at NO. If the official makes the right call on the Olsen fumble, that is quite possibly a 14 point swing in the outcome of the game, and we likely lose. Every close game typically has one or two plays you can point to that determine the outcome. I don't think that is valid evidence of how close we are to being a good team.

[Achilles]

My comment is not directed specifically at you, but whenever I see comments about how close we were in several games, I remember that it works both ways.

Case in point...our last game at NO. If the official makes the right call on the Olsen fumble, that is quite possibly a 14 point swing in the outcome of the game, and we likely lose. Every close game typically has one or two plays you can point to that determine the outcome. I don't think that is valid evidence of how close we are to being a good team.

You're right and that's why I hesitate to make statements like this. Perhaps I was just trying to be optimistic (which I'm usually not).

As further evidence to support the idea that we are a decent team...Bill Polian said in an interview that he felt like RR and staff did everything right in the first Atlanta loss, the Chicago loss, and the second Tampa Bay loss. He said that it was individual players who were to blame who didn't execute on the field.

Based on his expert analysis, I'd say that pretty good evidence that Rivera himself did ultimately affect positive growth in this team, even if some of his players let him down. I'll be the first to admit that there have been plenty of losses that RR could share in some of the blame...

But you have to think that with more experience, more time to prepare the team (conditioning and scheming), and hopefully some good personnel moves (depending on the new GM) those kinds of losses will become wins on the near future.

Still, in the NFC you needed to win 10 games. In reality, you are right...we weren't that close.