A report that came out Wednesday afternoon from ESPN's John Keim that contained Rivera's first comments since his dismissal in DC, and the first thing that jumped out at Grant Paulsen was this quote about Sam Howell:
"I took a big gamble. I put a lot on Sam and I probably shouldn't have put as much pressure on him, and I think that was probably one of the mistakes I made this year. He didn't deserve to have that put on him. He's a good young quarterback, has some talent and some ability, and I think that's something I should have backed off on. I should have kept emphasizing he was going to be the guy that got the first opportunity; just phrasing it that way would have taken a lot of pressure off of him. Just kind of that he hadn't been anointed."
"So, I guess he feels like he named him the starter even though he didn't technically, but I guess his comments were like 'we're gonna go with Sam,' and I think he regrets that, maybe," GP said. "I don't know if that means he wishes that he would have had him compete with Jacoby Brissett or not, but it sounds like he still wanted him to be the guy, he just thinks he put too much pressure on him too quick."
"We did that stupid word game where he wouldn't say starter; QB1, first opportunity, he'll get the first crack, he has every opportunity to win the job, we're gonna give him the first shot. Say starter! He wouldn't, he did exactly what he said, but the idea we're pretending that it was because he put too much pressure?" Danny replied. "Remember, he declared this or leaked this out, whatever you want to call it, in February when it was, 'don't look over here at the disaster.' That just was, 'I got a new quarterback for you guys who played perfectly well in a meaningless game, ta da!' That doesn't make any sense, and doesn't jive with any of the quotes or the constant ongoing story that was last year."
GP still thinks it's peculiar that Ron knew he was coaching for his job and still hitched his wagon to Howell, which 'was pretty ballsy and not a surprise he shouldn't have done that in hindsight,' although maybe he knew status quo wasn't acceptable and took the risk knowing he needed it.
One other quote really got Grant & Danny, though.
"In hindsight, he wishes he wasn't maybe as involved in personnel and that he was just able to coach a little more," GP said before reading the quote:
"I would have loved a different model, just because in hindsight now you really see how much more time you spend on personnel, and as a coach, that's not necessarily what you want to do. What I really enjoyed more than anything else the last five weeks was just being right in the middle of everything; now your only focus is just that one thing that's what you do you want to, teach."
And yeah, Danny has no sympathy for that, either.
"I have no sympathy for that. Obviously, some of us in foresight were saying that at the time, and kind of throughout and during," Danny said. "I mean, Josh Harris said this the other day, these are both 80 hour a week jobs and I don't know how somebody could do that. These are both super-intense, clock never turns off kind of things, and I don't think anybody really has the wherewithal to do both things at a high level, let alone Rivera, who seemed to shut off, and couldn't be bothered several times."
