Well, that was a long goodbye.
As expected, Ron Rivera is out as head coach of the Washington Commanders after months of his team regressing from mediocre to flat-out bad. In fact, one could make the case this was the worst season in franchise history, largely thanks to the worst point differential (-189) in Washington football history.
The worst part of it all: Washington was just here four years ago and Rivera was supposed to have the Commanders in contention by now.
He crowed about his Year 3 progression in Carolina — a 12-win season and his first playoff berth with the Panthers. Not only did that jump not come in Washington, but his team completely fell apart in his final season, losing eight straight games to close out a lost season.
Where did it all go wrong?
“Honestly, I would have to say it was probably the first Philadelphia game,” Rivera said following the 38-10 loss to Dallas. “After that, there was a little bit of a stretch where there were some things, looking at it analytically, that pointed in the wrong direction.”
“Then, once we got past [the win over] New England, we just never really bounced back.”
The Commanders’ 4-13 season was the dirt-covered cherry on top of Rivera’s 26-40-1 record in four seasons. It was fitting that it brought his career record to 102-103-1 because, save for his Super Bowl run in 2015, Rivera’s head coaching career was defined by mediocrity (his claim to fame is being the only coach to win multiple division titles with a losing record).
I take no joy in that development. Rivera is widely respected around the league and, frankly, he had to contend with several unusual factors, many of them unprecedented.
In his first year alone he got hit by a cancer diagnosis, a global pandemic, a countrywide racial reckoning that forced the change of the franchise’s decades-old controversial nickname and a bunch of allegations surrounding the now-departed owner.
“For three and a half years I’ve been managing,” Rivera said Friday after running his final practice in Washington. “About the last five weeks, I’ve been coaching.”
But that doesn’t excuse Rivera (the de facto general manager) from undermining Rivera (the head coach) at every turn.
A defensive-minded coach closing out his tenure with the worst defense in the league by far is mind-boggling.
From importing the wrong (and arguably too many) former Panthers to Washington, to his inability to keep together a stout offensive line — he inherited two All-Pros (Trent Williams and Brandon Scherff) and another solid starter in Morgan Moses now starting for the Super Bowl-favorite up the road in Baltimore — to his reactive approach to getting a franchise quarterback (I’m still scratching my head as to why he never called his former MVP QB Cam Newton), Rivera self-sabotaged any hope of keeping up the ultracompetitive NFC East.
Mike Tomlin made the playoffs with Mason Rudolph. You do have to find “that guy,” but you can be respectable until you find him @RiverboatRonHC
— Andy Pollin (@andypollin1) January 7, 2024
Commanders managing partner Josh Harris knows there has to be a clear delineation between the coach and the GM. Hell, Rivera himself basically acknowledged it last week.
“It’ll be separate, and that, I think, is going to be really good,” Rivera said Friday of ownership’s plans for the future hierarchy.
Look at the teams alongside Washington at the bottom of the NFL standings when Rivera joined the team in 2020: the two-win Bengals have since won as many playoff games (5) with Joe Burrow as the franchise had in all its 53 years of prior existence.
The Detroit Lions — who actually whiffed on the third overall pick in 2020 with Jeff Okudah — just set a franchise record for wins and won their first division title since 1993. The best season in Lions history to date was losing to Washington in the 1992 NFC Championship Game. Now, they’re plausibly capable of at least repeating that feat.
The Miami Dolphins selected Tua Tagovailoa fifth overall and he’s now at the helm of the NFL’s most explosive offense, clinching the league lead in passing yardage in a winner-take-division game. Even Jacksonville, which has toggled between mediocre and terrible for most of its existence, is a team that feels close to contention.
Washington? Naysayer, please.
Don’t mean to rain on the parade, but there was a time when winning the division was a given. But relative to the last 30 years, it was a great night https://t.co/mX3VTRMgg7
— Andy Pollin (@andypollin1) January 5, 2024
Under any name, Washington hasn’t won 11 games in a season since their most-recent Super Bowl in 1991. Since then, every NFL team has done it … multiple times.
Yes, that includes Cleveland and Detroit, who each rebounded from winless seasons.
That’s why it’s paramount that Josh Harris and company get this next batch of hires right. Find a great football executive to find a great head coach and build up a great program. I would love to see Dawn Aponte in a global front office role, Ian Cunningham as the GM/talent evaluator and if you can’t pry Mike Tomlin out of Pittsburgh (and they should absolutely try), Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald would be a fine consolation prize, please and thank you.
(After this column was post, Harris said he asked members of the ownership group as well as former NBA executive Bob Myers and ex-Minnesota GM Rick Spielman to work with him in the searches for a head of football personnel and coach.)
Whoever they choose, it must be a group that has demonstrated the ability to get more from less. Because, unfortunately, Rivera left little foundation to build on.
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