Ron Rivera has been through bad times before in Carolina – the first two years of his head coaching tenure saw rumors swirl about his job security, culminating in NFL.com running a story that anticipated the coach of the Panthers being fired; instead, Rivera was brought back, only for rumors to swirl around Charlotte early in the 2013 season a few months later when the Panthers started 1-2. We all know what the next chapter of this story was – Rivera and Cam Newton turned the Panthers around to finish 12-4 and put the first of two Coach of the Year trophies on Rivera’s mantel.
But now, a few years and six straight losses later, the next chapter of Rivera’s story is very much unwritten.
Flip forward in Rivera’s biography to Week 13 of 2018, and the storyline had come full circle with reports surfacing that new owner David Tepper was growing antsy with the direction of the team and Rivera’s job security was again being questioned. But two weeks later, with the Panthers playoff chances now down to less than 1% and Cam Newton’s shoulder threatening to end the quarterback’s season after Week 15, there is no general manager to angrily dispute the rumors about the coach – only reporters asking questions about whether he knows whether he’ll be back next year.
And, as anyone could guess, he doesn’t like it.
“Oh, absolutely I [hate those types of questions about his job],” he said. “Because I don’t know, I can’t tell you. I really can’t. I’ve been through it a couple of times my first two seasons but at the end of the day, it comes down to one person — and that’s the only one who knows.”
So although he talks with that one person – Tepper – and general manager Marty Hurney on a regular basis, until he meets with Tepper to discuss his job, he’ll just be moving forward as he always has – and that means it’s on to the Panthers home finale against Atlanta and try to avoid being the first team in NFL history to begin the season 6-2 and end the season 6-10.
“I just talking about going forward,” said Rivera. “For me going forward is we have Atlanta this week, so that’s pretty much the focus; I control what I can and it’s one day at a time and that’s right now preparation for Atlanta.”
“I think for us as a football team, to go forward, we’ve got to continue to grow – all of us. And we’ll do that.”
Rivera has already made changes to try and turn the tide of a season heading down the drain by firing two defensive position coaches, stripping defensive coordinator Eric Washington of playcalling duties and taking over the play selection himself to try and turn a defense around that had given up 126 points over four games before the changes – under Rivera’s tutelage, the secondary of the Panthers found their first interception since Week 9 and limited Drew Brees and the #2 scoring offense in the league to only 12 points this week, although those 12 points were enough to get the Saints the victory on Monday Night Football as the Panthers offense could only manage 247 total yards and a lone touchdown.
And while it appears a decision is pending for Tepper after the season is over, a decision will likely be made this week on whether or not quarterback Cam Newton, who has struggled with shoulder soreness since Week 7 and had his worst game of the season on Monday Night Football before admitting after the game that he hadn’t seen any progress since changing his practice schedule to accomodate the injury over the last two months, will play again in 2018.
“My job is to do the things that I can control and for me at this particular point in time, I don’t have an answer for you,” said Newton after the Panthers’ sixth straight loss. “I know, and I’ll make public, that I have tried and done everything. I think the frustration, like I said before, comes when no matter what you do – you can rub magic dust on it, go to this or that person, have the placebo things done where you think certain things are what they are – and you come out and you’re still the same.”
“Over the past couple of weeks, nothing has really changed.”
The boastful quarterback, never short on confidence, stood plaintively at the podium and wondered aloud what his answer would be if surgery was recommended as the next option.
“I don’t know. At this particular point, I don’t know. I’ve been eager to go to [Head Trainer Ryan Vermillion’s] office every week, eager to find out what it is. Did you find what it is? What am I supposed to do? What do we have to do?”
“It’s not getting better, it’s not getting worse.”
So while Rivera was cagey on Tuesday about whether or not the Panthers’ franchise quarterback would be starting on Sunday, saying that conversations needed to be had between Newton, Rivera, doctors and trainers after this “rough stretch” in the quarterback’s career, a decision will come about what will happen with Cam Newton over the next few days – a decision about Rivera’s future will likely come soon after.
The plan for Newton may be uncertain at the moment, but Rivera’s message about his own clear – he wants to be back on the sidelines for Carolina in 2019.
“I think there is a lot to it – when you think you’ve learned it all, then it’s time to move on. I don’t think I’ve learned it all; I’ll just continue to look at things, evaluate and learn from the positives and the negatives.”
“I’m very happy here; I really…appreciate my place here on this football team and in this city and in this community.”
The player’s message about their coach is the same – Mario Addison said he wanted to win on Monday night specifically for his coach, the same coach that likely had a hand in plucking Addison from Washington’s practice squad in December of 2012 and helped mold him into the player that led the team in sacks last season with 11.
In fact, every player in the locker room, when asked, had nothing but glowing words for Rivera, from rookies on the tail end of their first season to captains like Ryan Kalil who is winding down his career to Thomas Davis, who isn’t even sure whether he’ll be back next year or not – but he knows about his coach.
“It’s tough for all of us being in a situation, as a group, [even though] Ryan has made a decision that he’s not coming back, a bunch of us, there’s a lot of uncertainty – we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said the 35-year old linebacker who said after 2017 that 2018 would be his last season but has since hesitated on that proclamation. “Next week could be my last game at Bank of America Stadium – to think about that is extremely tough.”
“Coach Rivera is Coach Rivera. He’s been the same guy when we [were] 15-1 one year, he was the same guy. And now that we are 6-8, he’s gonna be the same guy. We feed off of the energy. Coach Rivera’s a guy that stays upbeat, he’s a motivator, he keeps us excited about playing football.”
“That’s who he is and we love him for that.”
