The Washingon Redskins hit the reset button in a major way this season and handed near-complete control of the franchise to new head coach Ron Rivera.
For the sake of the fanbase, they better hope they got it right. So what kind of coach did owner Dan Snyder land?
"Well, I'll tell you what, you're getting a heck of a leader and a gritty guy," Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey told The Sports Junkies Thursday when asked about his former coach.
"You're getting a great guy, you're getting a heckuva coach," McCaffrey told 106.7 The Fan. "To me, the best thing about Coach Rivera is he's consistent. He's the same guy every day, he works his butt off day-in-day-out. So, you guys are getting a really good one."
Rivera and the Panthers drafted McCaffrey with the 8th overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. However, despite some huge offensive numbers for the back out of Stanford (he's averaged 5.9 yards per touch and scored 39 touchdowns in his three seasons), Rivera and the Panthers were unable to translate that production into many wins due to injuries to quarterback Cam Newton.
"Obviously he has a history of winning, unfortunately, we had a couple of rough years there," McCaffrey said, referring to Carolina's 23-21 record under Rivera since 2017. "I don't think that was ever his fault. As a player I wish I could've won a lot more games for him."
Of course, Rivera isn't the only one of McCaffrey's former coaches to come up 95 from Charlotte, Scott Turner, who served as the Panthers' offensive coordinator for part of the 2019 season, is also joining the Redskins.
"Yeah, Scott's the man. He's somebody who I had a lot of fun playing with," he told The Junkies. "He brings such a good energy to the facility, such a good energy to practice. He's very relatable, he's very good at putting offenses in good terms, putting guys in positions to succeed.
"And, obviously, learning offenses from his Pops (former Redskins head coach Norv Turner) his whole life, he's a guy who's already really good, but is only gonna get better."
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