Nine months ago, Ron Rivera said he could feel the pressure of mounting expectations entering his third season as the Washington Commanders’ head coach.
"This is the year that says, 'We're going to ascend.' And we should be ascending," Rivera said in April 2022.
"The third season is when you take another step,” Rivera said at the time. “This area is hungry for a winner. They want a winner and I want to win."
After back-to-back seven-win seasons, there was belief around the team that they would take the next step. There was confidence Terry McLaurin and the offense could pop, optimism Chase Young and the defense would rebound, and, after trading for Carson Wentz, hope the quarterback situation was finally workable.
But the Commanders finished the 2022 season one win out of the playoffs, but last in the NFC East. After Sunday’s win over Dallas in the season finale, Rivera said, "We feel like we’re headed in the right direction."
That win gave Washington a .500 record (8-8-1) and cost the Commanders two slots in the NFL Draft. They would now be picking in the dead middle of the first round: 16 out of 32.
"We're in the middle of the pack. And we've been in the middle of the pack the last three seasons. It means you're close. It means you're close to being better.” That was former team president Bruce Allen exactly five years ago.
When Rivera came to Washington to clean up Allen’s mess the franchise was a sinking ship in utter disrepair. The football side was bad and the culture around the team facility was even worse. Rivera plugged some holes, fixed the broken sails, and applied a few fresh coats of paint. The franchise is now (for the most part) no longer taking on water and there appears to be a rudder underneath.
But Rivera’s repairs on the football side did not generate the wind required to move things forward. So it is now time to find a new captain.
Without any semblance of a starting-quality quarterback aboard, Riverboat Ron only’s heading still directs the franchise toward NFL purgatory. Send out the familiar SOS: ‘Commanders marooned in football mediocrity. Rescue needed.’
The Commanders should fire Rivera – and his hand-picked general manager Martin Mayhew – not because they failed, but because they have accomplished all they can.
To mix metaphors, the same reason Tom Hagen was pushed out for not being a wartime consigliere, Rivera isn’t a title-winning coach. He came in to do a job and with that job done, it is time for him to go.
He shepherded a fractured flock as they traversed a precarious mountain pass. But Rivera doesn’t know the route back to the valley of happiness that Washington fans faintly remember from 30 years ago.
Rivera and Mayhew made the football team they wanted: A team with a grind-it-out offense that compliments a tough defense. Rivera admitted it is a “philosophical belief” to be a run-first team during his end-of-season press conference on Tuesday, arguing Washington must “control the tempo of the game” to win.
Mayhew added their ideal “formula” was a 2-to-1 run-pass ratio, “For every time that we threw the ball, we ran the ball twice. That's how we want to play.”
Control clock. Three yards and a cloud of dust football. Get the offense into third and manageable. But Rivera and Mayhew are so committed to that cloud of dust they don’t know how lost they are in the modern age.
They have designed a team to play with an offense that isn’t explosive and doesn’t take advantage of the NFL's rules that are designed to increase scoring and passing. This runs counter to every other successful team in football.
Rivera envisions a winning game plan as 40+ minutes time of possession, an offense scrapping to twenty points, and the defense shutting down the opponent's final drive in a one-score game. But that's a plan that is not sustainable from season to season because it leaves no margin for error or room to make adjustments.
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And that philosophy may explain why quarterback – the most important position in the entire sport – still remains the biggest issue facing the franchise entering Rivera’s fourth offseason in Washington.
The quarterbacks Rivera has picked have included unproven, unheralded youngsters, an XFL benchwarmer, a has-been meme QB, and a washed-out veteran.
Mayhew said Tuesday of the last one, “We thought [Wentz] was a good fit for how we wanted to play football.”
On picking Wentz, Rivera went back to his run-first philosophy: “We had a formula we wanted to use, we didn’t use it initially, and once we got to it then we started to have the success, but by then Carson was out with the injury.”
But Wentz, as many predicted, flopped. Taylor Heinicke was replacement level and Sam Howell had one game. And the Commanders are back where they were each offseason for the last five years: needing a starter at QB.
When asked Tuesday why he thought this offseason would be different after failing the previous three offseasons to find a quarterback, Rivera said, "Well I think starting it, going into it, I think we're in a much better place."
But trusting Riverboat Ron’s compass one more offseason would be a blunder.
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Of course, as of today, this is still Daniel and Tanya Snyder’s team, a husband and wife duo that nobody around the league trusts and with a football track record of spectacular failure.
Reports indicate the Snyders may soon be gone. The franchise will soon be closer to normal. And normal franchises don’t need a head coach there to prevent dysfunction.
With the Snyders still in charge, firing perhaps one of the few people keeping the operation afloat is a risk. And many people will tell you they would rather stick with a known quantity that is mediocre fearing it could get worse. But football teams don’t punt on third down out of fear of fumbling the snap. Better is possible if you are willing to seek it out.
Against all odds, Rivera made the playoffs his first season and managed a 22-27-1 record while starting eight different quarterbacks during three seasons filled with off-the-field tumult. This is the best he could do.
Rivera did a great job in Washington dealing with one of the biggest messes in professional sports and he did it while defeating cancer and while working for the biggest pain in the NFL’s rear end.
Somehow he was able to put the franchise in better shape than when he found it. His reward is he can leave with his dignity, his pride, and his reputation as a man of character intact.
"How long you're at someplace is all about winning," Rivera said last offseason. "That will never change. If you're successful you can have a nice, long run. If you're not, it will be time to move on. That's the crux of this business."
It's not personal, Ron. It's strictly business.
Follow @BenKrimmel and @Team980 for more.
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