Ron Rivera - Belichick Role?

[KillerKat]

Rivera may be a good motivator, but he is terrible at fielding the best possible team and is too loyal to his "own guys". For instance, it took injuries for Norwell to become a starter and for us to find out Remmers was better than who we had starting.

[UpstatePanther]

I didn't follow the GM responsibilities of the Panthers till Gettleman was hired so I have a question for those who did: 

is Marty Hurney a good talent evaluator when it comes to roster cuts? 

I know his drafts were turrible overall, but how did he do making roster decisions?

[Ace_Aladdin]

9 minutes ago, KillerKat said:

Rivera doesn't draft or trade

He scouts the players for his system so yea he does.

[Mr. Scot]

1 hour ago, top dawg said:

I know that you and others probably don't agree, but the lack of a ring has more to do with Gettleman's failings than Ron's. Gettleman failed to adequately address arguably the two biggest weaknesses that we had in 2015, and it unfortunately bit us all up in our ass in the Super Bowl. The thing is though, without Rivera motivating and coaching his ass off, we would have never even been there. Ron has taken highly flawed rosters and has won more than he should.

Take a look at Ron's coaching choices.

Now go take a look at the staff Sean McDermott built as a rookie head coach.

Come back and tell me after that if Ron should be making personnel decisions.

There was a time when Ron had roster control. It was when we were using guys like Legedu Naanee.

As a head coach, Rivera makes a very good defensive coordinator.

[top dawg]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Take a look at Ron's coaching choices.

Now go take a look at the staff Sean McDermott built as a rookie head coach.

Come back and tell me after that if Ron should be making personnel decisions.

There was a time when Ron had roster control. It was when we were using guys like Legedu Naanee.

As a head coach, Rivera makes a very good defensive coordinator.

I am highly skeptical of Rivera's personnel choices,  and that's why he won't be a GM anytime soon. But even Gettleman (among others) have given this coaching staff considerable praise.

As for McDermott, he is doing a fine job on paper, but it's way too early to crown him anything but a potentially good HC.

One may luck themselves into the COTY once, but twice is simply improbable. Rivera is rightly getting an extended opportunity (especially in today's climate) to bring a ring home.

[Mr. Scot]

27 minutes ago, top dawg said:

I am highly skeptical of Rivera's personnel choices,  and that's why he won't be a GM anytime soon. But even Gettleman (among others) have given this coaching staff considerable praise.

As for McDermott, he is doing a fine job on paper, but it's way too early to crown him anything but a potentially good HC.

One may luck themselves into the COTY once, but twice is simply improbable. Rivera is rightly getting an extended opportunity (especially in today's climate) to bring a ring home.

I don't put anymore stock in those awards than I do the Pro Bowl.

Rivera's biggest coaching issues haven't changed since he first started. Questionable depth chart decisions are a regular occurrence, clock management is atrocious,  and worst of all his teams consistently both start slow (in both games and seasons) and perform poorly in the second half.

The fact that these things have occurred under different GMs tells me you can't really shift the blame to personnel.

[top dawg]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I don't put anymore stock in those awards than I do the Pro Bowl.

Rivera's biggest coaching issues haven't changed since he first started. Questionable depth chart decisions are a regular occurrence, clock management is atrocious,  and worst of all his teams consistently both start slow (in both games and seasons) and perform poorly in the second half.

The fact that these things have occurred under different GMs tells me you can't really shift the blame to personnel.

I will admit that the slow starts for the season bother me greatly, but starting slow in games is debatable. I would like to see him make better adjustments in the second half of games for sure, but he was closing out seasons pretty well under Gettleman. 

As for clock management and all that, he may need to surround himself with better coordinators/coaches, but even still he's not as bad as he once was. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good (like I'd argue about Gettleman). But I can't blame Rivera for taking flawed teams and arguably overachieving (which probably led to the awards, which I am not going to discount) regardless of how many GMs have been here. Rivera came in at arguably the lowest time in franchise history with holes all over the place due to one GM, then succeeded under another GM who didn't do the best he can to fill the last key holes that could have gotten the franchise over the top. That's just how I see it. I can't discount personnel weaknesses so easily and blame it all on the coach.

 

[Mr. Scot]

5 minutes ago, top dawg said:

I will admit that the slow starts for the season bother me greatly, but starting slow in games is debatable. I would like to see him make better adjustments in the second half of games for sure, but he was closing out seasons pretty well under Gettleman. 

As for clock management and all that, he may need to surround himself with better coordinators/coaches, but even still he's not as bad as he once was. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good (like I'd argue about Gettleman). But I can't blame Rivera for taking flawed teams and arguably overachieving (which probably led to the awards, which I am not going to discount) regardless of how many GMs have been here. Rivera came in at arguably the lowest time in franchise history with holes all over the place due to one GM, then succeeded under another GM who didn't do the best he can to fill the last key holes that could have gotten the franchise over the top. That's just how I see it. I can't discount personnel weaknesses so easily and blame it all on the coach.

 

Surrounding himself with better assistants would require that he acknowledge a deficiency. Do you realistically see that happening anytime soon? This is the guy who said Richard Rodgers was doing a good job.

And heck, even in the season where we went 15-1, how many of those games were we sweating right down to the last second?

[Jrock88]

 

[top dawg]

1 minute ago, Mr. Scot said:

Surrounding himself with better assistants would require that he acknowledge a deficiency. Do you realistically see that happening anytime soon? This is the guy who said Richard Rodgers was doing a good job.

And heck, even in the season where we went 15-1, how many of those games were we sweating right down to the last second?

Yes. Well I've often said that if anything gets him fired, it's going to be his undying love of Shula. Extend that to coach X. 

I seem to have more faith in his ability to learn and change than you. We'll see how it turns out.

[shulasmyhero]

5 hours ago, xav8tor said:

Not the best example. Did he hang on to him too long when his performance dropped off? Arguably so. However, two Pro Bowl nods in 13 and 15, not to mention many crucial runs, catches, and blocks, says the Dozer was a heck of contributor for a large part of his stay here. RR had a lot to do with his acqusition given that he knew him from SD. Go find those SoundFx clips where opposing defenders were arguing about who had to try to tackle him for proof that this wasn't a fail, at least for the first three years.

Determining if a player is no longer productive is talent evaluation.  If you want to call it loyalty to vets, fine.  He kept Tolbert a minimum of two years too long.

Pro Bowls for the FB position are meaningless.  He contributed a great deal in 2013 but dropped off a lot in 2014 and even worse in 2015 and 2016.

[xav8tor]

7 minutes ago, shulasmyhero said:

Determining if a player is no longer productive is talent evaluation.  If you want to call it loyalty to vets, fine.  He kept Tolbert a minimum of two years too long.

Pro Bowls for the FB position are meaningless.  He contributed a great deal in 2013 but dropped off a lot in 2014 and even worse in 2015 and 2016.

I agreed that RR kept him too long, but fact check: I don't remember why (injury?), but Tolbert only played in 8 games in 2014, so it's almost impossible to compare that year to the others. However, in 2015, although he had 40% fewer rushing attempts (no fault of Tolbert there), he had 71% of the yards he had in 2013. In addition, his yards per attempt were the highest he had as a Panther (4.1), his longest run was in '15, as was his longest reception (40), and he also had his highest number of receiving TDs in '15 (3 v. 1 in '13). So, to say he dropped off "a lot" in 14 and 15 ignores the facts, and saying Pro Bowls are meaningless for FBs is rather odd and I'll disregard that. Fans, but more importantly, coaches and fellow papers apparently didn't share your opinion. True, RR, for whatever reason, didn't address the decline in 16 with Tolbert , who was not alone in that regard. And no, the only thing RR and BB have in common is that their initials have double letters. Your Exhibit A was not a good one in terms of RR's talent eval capabilities. There are far better ones to introduce...probably a dozen or so, starting with Shula.

[Mr. Scot]

1 hour ago, top dawg said:

Yes. Well I've often said that if anything gets him fired, it's going to be his undying love of Shula. Extend that to coach X. 

I seem to have more faith in his ability to learn and change than you. We'll see how it turns out.

Being six or seven years in and still making the same mistakes you were making as a rookie doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

[top dawg]

24 minutes ago, xav8tor said:

...the only thing RR and BB have in common is that their initials have double letters. 

I appreciate your entire post, but this part is extremely humorous (if perhaps not a little cynical, which is OK if it is).