Ron Rivera’s chief asset is his steadiness. It’s what the chaos-in-its-DNA Washington franchise needed most when he was hired as its coach as 2020 dawned. It’s what guided him through his own cancer diagnosis that fall. It’s what allowed his first team here to put behind a five-game losing streak with a four-game winning streak, his second team to beat back a four-game losing streak with another four-game winning streak.
Ron Rivera steadied the Commanders. Now his operation is trembling.
The problem, though, is this: What happens if Rivera’s steadiness erodes — or plain evaporates?
Thursday night in Chicago feels like a fork in the Rivera road in Washington. It isn’t just the 1-4 start to this season; his first two teams were 2-6 after eight games and righted things, to a degree, in their coach’s image. Rather, it’s the surfacing of the precise types of problems Rivera’s mere presence is supposed to eliminate.
Quite a week in Ashburn, huh? Amazing how much vase-shattering and broom-sweeping can fit into two days of practice before a Thursday night spotlight falls on the franchise. What’s the spotlight to shine on? Same old, same old. Unnecessary public drama is a permanent ingredient in the stew here, and apparently even a steady, skilled chef can’t extract it.
The latest controversy in Ashburn should have been contained to the field. Rivera poorly managed both the clock and the use of a challenge flag in the fourth quarter Sunday against Tennessee, all but eliminating running plays as an option with the Commanders trying for the winning touchdown from the Tennessee 2-yard line. With no timeouts, Carson Wentz threw two incompletions, then locked in on running back J.D. McKissic on third down. Titans linebacker David Long came off Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin and made a lunging interception. Ballgame.
That’s a rather large menu of football-focused mismanagement — portions both appetizer and whole-meal sized — from which to choose. Why did Rivera lose a valuable timeout by challenging a play that had almost zero chance of being overturned? What were Wentz’s options on the play that sealed a fourth straight loss? More than that: Was Wentz the right choice at quarterback for a franchise that can never find one?
The mess left the Commanders almost comically behind in the NFC East — a division that, just two years ago, was so bad that Washington “won” it with a 7-9 record. Now the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys are a combined 13-2. None of those teams won more than six games two seasons ago. Now they’re blowing by the Commanders. Why, Rivera was asked Monday, had his team fallen so far behind its supposed peers?
“Quarterback,” he said. And stopped.
The mind went to crazy places. B-b-b-but, the Giants have Daniel Jones. The Cowboys are 4-0 with Cooper Rush. Yeah, Jalen Hurts may be an MVP candidate in Philadelphia.
But … seriously?
This is a self-inflicted wound out of the Steve Spurrier-Jim Zorn “Washington Coaches’ Manual of Self-Inflicted Wounds,” the verbal equivalent of running the swinging gate on back-to-back plays. (Side note: Type “Jim Zorn swinging gate” into YouTube. Boggles the mind.)
Yes, Rivera eventually provided context — that was easy to clip out. No, he wasn’t just intentionally burying Wentz, about whom he said later, “We chose him because we believe in him.”
But the misstep more than carried a news cycle, and it adds to the feeling that Rivera finds himself — and his entire operation — approaching a precipice. Not just on the football side, where a loss to the Bears — who gain more yards than only one team in the league and throw for fewer than anyone — would leave the fan base apoplectic. But on the leadership side as well.
Rivera did well to walk back his comments Tuesday, apologizing to his team and explaining himself publicly. (“For me not to finish my thought completely, I messed up. And so I just told the guys that it was [on] me, and it won’t happen again.”) Nicely done.
That kind of mixed messaging, though, can have a real impact — even if it’s largely shrugged off in the locker room. Part of an NFL coach’s job is being the public face of the franchise’s direction, able to clearly and articulately build confidence. Appearing, even briefly, to blame the quarterback you chose for the record achieved by the roster you created isn’t going to fly publicly. He has to know that.
About the roster: It matters that Rivera closed last season by hyping up this one, and we already have been over the idea that you can’t create those expectations and then preach patience when things are rough. By my count, Rivera and his chief personnel officers – Martin Mayhew and Marty Hurney – are responsible for drafting, signing and/or extending 48 of the 53 players on the active roster, plus all eight players on injured reserve or the physically unable to perform list. That includes cornerback William Jackson III, the splashy free agent signee making $40.5 million over three years who is either injured or benched — or both.
It’s Rivera’s team, and it feels as wobbly as at any point in his tenure here. If this gets uglier — both in performance on the field and messaging off it — what are the choices?
It would do no good to make either of the double-headed Marty the scapegoat, because the entire operation has been pitched as coach-centric from the start. Ridding the team of either or both personnel men would be an indictment on Rivera’s roster, which he said was ready to make a step forward in Year 3. There’s no logic and no real impact in that.
So what does owner Daniel Snyder — sorry, co-owners Dan and Tanya Snyder — make of Rivera on Friday morning if his record is 1-5 in 2022 and 15-24 in two-plus seasons? Snyder once fired Marty Schottenheimer one year into a four-year deal. Spurrier resigned with three years remaining on a five-year contract. Mike Shanahan was fired with one season and $7 million left, and Jay Gruden was paid nearly $8 million to walk midway through 2019.
Which led to Rivera. Which brings us to Thursday night in Chicago, the weeks that follow — and a discussion about whether ownership would move for a change with more than two years remaining on his deal. You want Jack Del Rio running this team?
There’s time to get this right. Or at least more right than it has been during a disastrous start to the season. But if Ron Rivera’s steady hand appears, after 38 games in Washington, on the verge of shaking, what defining, driving characteristic does he have left? If that’s disappeared, then it’s scary to think about the place this franchise could find itself — yet again.
Source: WP
