Last January, when Ron Rivera reunited with Norv Turner, he said that one of the reasons he was excited to bring Turner on was the familiarity with the offense and the success that Turner had over the course of a quarter-century of coaching in the NFL, but there was one word that stood out, a word that was used multiple times throughout Turner’s first year as offensive coordinator for the Panthers.

Trust.

That trust is what led Rivera to continue to let Turner build the offense in his image this offseason – a year after bringing in free agents that had crossed paths with Turner in the past like wide receiver Jarius Wright and backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke, both of whom spent time with Turner in Minnesota, Turner has revamped the offensive coaching staff to his liking, bringing in former Alabama offensive guru Jake Peetz as running backs coach along with Jim Hostler to helm the wide receivers group this offseason to join Turner’s son Scott, who was already on staff.

Hostler worked under Turner as quarterbacks coach in San Francisco during the 2006 season.

“I told Norv this – some of the best years in my coaching career have been spent with him,” Rivera told the Charlotte Observer when Turner was hired. “There’s a trust factor. There’s a familiarity. And I really do appreciate the way he does things and the way he handles a game and calls the game.”

That trust and familiarity was one of the reasons why Rivera felt comfortable taking on the defensive playcalling for the final four weeks of the 2018 season and why he’ll continue to handle those duties in 2019 as he oversees the defense. If a head coach overseeing one side of the ball as playcaller while he trusts his coordinator to handle the other half of the game sounds familiar, it’s because it was the same situation – only with the roles reversed – in San Diego when Norv Turner was head coach and offensive playcaller with Ron Rivera helming the defense.

It gets even more familiar as the team will look to play more of a three-man front in 2019; Rivera’s 3-4 defense in San Diego allowed the fewest yards in the league while Turner rode Philip Rivers and a varied passing attack with 11 receivers catching more than 20 balls over the course of the season to the most yardage and second-most points in the NFL in 2010.

Rivera was hired as head coach of the Panthers after the season.

“It’s really about trusting him – I’m fortunate enough that working for him, I got an opportunity to see exactly what he’s like and the way he does things, which I [found] impressive,” said Rivera at the combine when I asked him if it made it easier for him to focus on the defense with a man like Turner handling the offense. “It’ll most certainly take a lot of the burden of really trying to focus in and worry about what’s going on. I’m pleased with what I do have on the defensive staff, I like the things that we’ve done – being in a couple of meetings with those guys, listening and talking about those things, I really feel good about it.”

“I think bringing Perry [Fewell] in, who I’ve worked with before, has been a big boon for us as well.”

Fewell spent a year under Rivera in 2005 with the Bears – Fewell as defensive backs coach and Rivera as defensive coordinator; they’ll try to recreate the magic of that season, where their defense only allowed a team to pass for more than 250 yards once during the regular season – here in Carolina.

In the age of specification, this is the ultimate form of delegation – do what you’re good at and assign the rest to someone you trust.

In New England, Bill Belichick runs the defense while Josh McDaniels calls the offensive plays – the same thing is the case in Los Angeles where Rams head coach Sean McVay entrusts his defense to Wade Philips, who was coaching in the NFL for a decade before the youngest coach in NFL history was even born. In New York, newly hired offensive-minded playcaller Adam Gase has hired 60-year old Gregg Williams, calling him the “head coach of the defense” to try and re-build the Jets in the image of the two teams who competed in last season’s Super Bowl.

“The biggest thing for me, moreso than anything else, is that my attention isn’t split truly in half,” said Rivera after the first week of Panthers training camp Monday. “It does favor the defensive side.”

“Norv’s always had that kind of autonomy and that’s something that I’ve always done with the coordinators is given them the autonomy to run that side of the ball….I was fortunate in that I know who Norv is and I know what he’s capable of – so I know what the offense is capable of and that’s what I get excited about is seeing us progress to what he’s done in the past.”

Excited to see what playmakers like Curtis Samuel, DJ Moore, Christian McCaffrey and Cam Newton can do in their second year of a Norv Turner offense – the year when everyone is expected to make a healthy jump from an offense that had the fourth-best rushing attack in the NFL during 2018 and averaged 27.5 points per game during the first half of the season while utilizing all of it’s weapons before Cam Newton’s shoulder injury slowed the pace a bit as they lost multiple close games to finish 7-9.

During the 2018 season, the Panthers had 15 different players catch a pass – a franchise record.

“People are going to put more emphasis on slowing Christian down, and if they do, that should open up opportunities for others,” Turner told Max Henson last week. “We have a very multiple offense. I think Christian will have great production and he’ll get his, but he’ll also give us an opportunity to spread it around.”

“I think guys have confidence and trust in what we’re doing offensively – they know it’s about execution. And in my experience, the second year in a system doing things over and over again, you see great development.”

That’s exactly what the Panthers are hoping for.

The relationship between Turner and Rivera is evident in the way they interact – Rivera, who still calls Turner “Coach” at times, left the podium after practice Monday and when he saw Turner standing behind him waiting to speak to the media, he lit up – they shared a big smile and a hearty handshake.

“We have a great away-from-football relationship and we have a great football relationship,” said Turner Monday. “He knows what we’re doing on offense, we spend a lot of time talking about what we’re doing on offense. Obviously, he likes the style of it – we were together for quite a while in San Diego and we had a lot of success. There are certain things that we’re going to do that we’re always going to make sure that we’re on the same page [and] that he understands what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

To Turner, the offense is always changing – 20% of the offense in 2019 will be new, drawing inspiration not only from his own mind, but from what he see around the league. Which of those plays go from the practice field to between the lines on Sunday stems from how good the plays look during installs and then in practice – but ultimately, it’s up to the offensive coordinator to push the right button at the right time, which Turner was able to do last season.

Whether or not he’ll be able to do it in 2019 will be decided in less than six weeks when Ron Rivera and Norv Turner will square off with Sean McVay and Wade Phillips at Bank of America Stadium – it’s going to be quite a matchup.

Trust me.

Josh Klein on Twitter
Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.