Washington is following the path of another Ron Rivera-coached team toward an unusual playoff berth

During a 16-year NFL career, Robinson found himself in some losing locker rooms. Players can sense a coach under duress, he said, because they yell louder or criticize more or withdraw. Robinson compared the feel in the building to sitting at dinner with your dad when he’s on edge, and he and his teammates had an expression for coaches who lost their cool: “Pressure busts a pipe.”

Yet Rivera seemed unfazed. He showed up to the studio each week with a dry wit Robinson described as less Eddie Murphy, more Jerry Seinfeld. He traded good-natured barbs with Mick Mixon, Robinson’s co-host who liked to suggest plays, and the levity prevented the show from becoming awkward, which can happen even on team-run programs. Last year, then-Washington coach Jay Gruden grew increasingly uncomfortable during a weekly segment called the “Hot Seat Challenge.”

“You would’ve never known he was under pressure,” Robinson said of Rivera. “His whole posture, the way he looks at you, the way he acts … he was so even-keeled, even when I saw him at practice.”

By all accounts, Rivera’s calm is one of the major through-lines between that season and this one. In 2014, Carolina overcame two months of listless play to finish 7-8-1, making it the second team to win a division with a losing record (joining the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks in 2010). Rivera could oversee the accomplishment again, if his Washington Football Team, at 5-7, edges the New York Giants with a final, four-game push that begins Sunday in Arizona against the San Francisco 49ers.

“There are parallels” between this team and the 2014 Panthers, Rivera said. Linebacker Thomas Davis Sr., the only player to experience both locker rooms, believes there’s “a lot similar.” The echoes can be eerie, including how the starting quarterback returned from a major injury (Cam Newton back then, Alex Smith this season) and how a Rivera’s cancer battle became an example for the team (Ron’s older brother Mickey back then, Ron this season).

“We haven’t really talked a lot about it from a coaching standpoint,” Davis said of 2014. “But for me, living through that season, I talk to guys about it all the time.”

There are important differences, too. Washington is younger and at the beginning of a rebuild, but 2014 was Rivera’s fourth season in Carolina. The Panthers had a core in place and championship aspirations coming off a 12-win season. Rivera doesn’t mind Washington’s position now.

“This group is a young group that doesn’t know the difference yet,” he said. “Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

Back then, the Panthers looked promising at first, winning their first two games. But they lost control from Weeks 3 to 13, struggling longer and more dramatically than Washington ever did. During that stretch, according to an analysis by SB Nation, the Panthers won once over an 83-day span, with differentials in scoring and yards per play among the lowest in the NFC. For 11 weeks, or more than two-thirds of the season, they were the worst team in the NFC.

The Panthers’ center at the time, Ryan Kalil, admitted “there wasn’t much hope.” But he and others said Rivera’s demeanor never wavered. The coach stood in front of the team every day and pointed out the division was still winnable. He asked his players to get a little better, pushing for perspective with his favorite phrases, including “Be where your feet are” and “Control your inner APE,” meaning attitude, preparation and effort.

This resonated with linebacker Luke Kuechly, who told The Washington Post, “the biggest thing in sports, especially in the NFL,” is consistent messaging. He saw Rivera’s confidence in the team was genuine and that “when he tells you what he’s believing, you believe it because he believes it.”

The players’ buy-in impressed Joe Kenn, the Panthers’ strength and conditioning coach that season. He understands coaches’ techniques because he has worked with more than 30 of them during a long career in professional and college athletics. But even the self-described realist couldn’t help but think to himself: “Golly, this guy really believes we’ve got a shot. So I guess we’ve got a shot.”

“It’s not coach-speak,” Kenn said. “If you look in Ron’s eyes, he absolutely, in every fiber of his skin, believes it. That’s the difference.”

That December, the Panthers snapped their losing streak with a 41-10 beatdown of the Saints in New Orleans. Despite a bizarre next month — Newton broke two vertebrae in his back in a car accident and Rivera’s house caught fire, causing $500,000 worth of damage and displacing his family — the Panthers rolled. Starting with the win over the Saints, they won their final four games to become the first playoff team to have gone more than two months without a victory. During the surge, Rivera delivered a quote he easily could have said yesterday.

“Believe me, I always said it — we’re in it,” Rivera told reporters. “Again, I’m making no apologies for being in it.”

In the opening round of the playoffs, Carolina hosted Arizona. The Cardinals’ reserve quarterback, current Washington tight end Logan Thomas, said he didn’t think of the Panthers’ record. He remembered “you could cut on the film and tell” they were a “bunch of dogs that are willing to fight.”

The Cardinals started third-string quarterback Ryan Lindley because of injuries. The Panthers won, 27-16, and allowed just 78 yards, the fewest ever in a postseason game. Looking back, Thomas thinks Washington shares “a lot of the same qualities” with that Panthers team.

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“We got a strong defense, just like theirs was, and then our offense makes plays when needed, whether it’s run game or pass game,” he said. “As long as we don’t beat ourselves, kind of like that team, [we’ll be] a tough team to out.”

The story of the Panthers’ 2014 season, told by those who lived it, usually ends with the playoff win. It is enough to illustrate their point. The year wasn’t an exercise in futility; the team everyone thought was terrible wasn’t so bad after all. But leaving the story at that point sands away the fact that one week later, following a divisional-round loss to the Seahawks, the players cleaned out their lockers like everyone else across the league. Some were crushed, while others, such as safety Roman Harper, could only marvel.

“Never been a part of anything like that,” he told the Charlotte Observer. “Never seen it.”

Looking back, Davis and others believe that playoff push had intangible, immeasurable value. The mind-set it fostered “carried over into that next season,” a 15-1 campaign that lasted all the way to an appearance in the Super Bowl. It’s impossible to expect the same arc for Washington, a different team in a different time, but there is a greater lesson here to unify the two seasons.

In the words of Kenn, the strength and conditioning coach, “It all builds on everything.”

Les Carpenter contributed to this report.