agreed with rubi.
rivera had a pass last year. brand new to the job of HC. no offseason. had to learn how to manage games and his team AND his coaching staff.
i haven't really seen an improvement or at least enough of one to this point to warrant me wanting to spend much more time allowing him to improve.
his growth is coming at a snails pace and i have yet to see any reason to think he could be dominant as a coach/manager/leader.
I still think back to last year and what I found to be a telling moment for Rivera. It had nothing to do with calling inappropriate timeouts or his demeanor on the sideline and largely went unnoticed.
Last game of the year against the Saints. 4th quarter, and we're down by 3 scores with maybe 8-10 minutes left on the clock. Yeah, the game is almost certainly out of reach, but I've seen teams come back from a 3 score deficit a number of times with say 5 to 8 minutes left on the clock.
We had the ball on the Saints side of the field. Around the 37 or 40 if I remember correctly. It's 4th and manageable. Rivera punts.
That incident cannot be characterized as anything other than a coach giving up. That there was no reason to continue fighting. That it was time to take our lumps and go home.
Now, let's compare and contrast. Remember when Greg Schiano took a lot of heat for his guys trying to disrupt a kneel down play? If it accomplished nothing else, his players got the message that the coach was going to fight until the final whistle sounded, so they had better do the same.
Looking at those 2 contrasting styles, which type of coach would you bust your ass for?