Okay, you want to look at things in context, how about 3 wins when still in playoff contention? That's right, 10 of Rivera's wins have come after we were already out of the playoff race. Lots of meaningless late season wins in the past two years. How about Rivera's abysmal record in games decided by one score or less? I'm too lazy to look it up right now and don't know it off the top of my head, but feel free to do so if you'd like.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. You've bought up a few points to indicate why Rivera is a bad coach but you don't provide any context. For instance, his losing record in games decided by one score or less. Context would be breaking each of those games down and finding the reasons why we lost and assigning the blame. Then look at the why to see if it's something that can be fixed. Was actions taken to fix that specific problem?
Take the Atlanta game for example. We didn't lose that game to bad coaching. We lost it because Cam fumbled in the last minute and Nakamura was out of position and gave up a huge play. You could argue Rivera put Nakamura there and I would agree. So, Rivera had to decide if Nakamura not making that play was something that could be fixed. He thought it was and gave him another chance. Once he found that to be a mistake Nakamura was benched.
And if you think Rivera should have benched him right away that's hindsight and the same thing as saying he should have benched Cam for fumbling at the worst possible time. Of course you and everyone else think that's not the same thing but it is. The only difference is that it's very easy to see Cam's ability and say he should not be benched. It's much harder with Nakamura because he's not a star and we're not the coach seeing him day in and day out and also because we don't see practice and now if he was the best option despite his less than stellar play.
That's why most fans are out of their gourd. They decide if a player of coach is good or bad based on singular things like if we won or not. They blame the QB for throwing an INT even though they have no idea what the play was, if the player ran the right route, if the QB was throwing to a spot, etc. CONTEXT.
At some point it comes down to results and Rivera has not provided winning results but when you look at the whole picture you see why knowledgeable football people are saying Carolina has a lot of talent and are a much better team than there record indicates. If Rivera has learned from his mistakes and we correct even half of the mistakes to lose those games we're an easy playoff team. And with a few more pieces a Superbowl team.
