NFL.com article on RR

[CanadianCat]

Ron Rivera, Carolina Panthers | Ninth year as an NFL head coach

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001024907/article/veteran-nfl-head-coaches-offer-advice-for-rookie-counterparts

"The hardest thing -- and the first thing that happens to you -- is you don't get to coach as much as you thought you would. You really don't. What happens is, you think I'm going to dive in and do all this stuff from a coaching standpoint, then all of a sudden the personnel aspect of it comes into play, and you start getting pulled over here or over there, and you're not getting an opportunity to go into that meeting room if you're going to handle the offense or defense and coach that aspect of it. I was fortunate that (defensive coordinator) Sean McDermott and I had worked together, so I had an idea of where we were going to go with everything with Sean. But (general manager) Marty Hurney and I had never worked together, and we had the first pick of the draft and we had dived into all the quarterbacks. When you talk about the list of QBs who were coming out that year, you had Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, Ryan Mallett and Andy Dalton, as well as Cam (Newton). We would start every day watching their throws. We watched every throw Cam made, every completion and incompletion. We watched every run -- every called run, every scramble -- for everybody. The thing you find out as a new coach is, whatever you determine you're going to do in the draft is going to take away so much time from the Xs and Os. What you're going to do in free agency is going to take away more time from the Xs and Os. You're not going to do what you think you're going to do (in terms of coaching).

"Then the other realization is, how are we going to handle things? How are we going to do the draft? How are we going to handle free agency? With our coaching staff, are we going to delegate this, delegate that? How are you going to handle things when there's a crisis? It was tough for me because my first year we were getting ready for the lockout. The first time I sat down with my whole team was the day we reported to training camp."

ADVICE: "Find a mentor. I didn't find my mentor until my third year. I didn't hire a former NFL head coach on my staff, and I didn't talk as much to Andy (Reid) or Coach Turner as I should have. The best thing that Mr. Richardson did for me was he put me in touch with John Madden going into my third season.

"Mr. Richardson said, 'I think you need a mentor and I would like you to call.' So I did. He did me a favor. John said, 'I know you were 3-13 in games decided by seven points or less. I want you to go back and look at those 13 you lost and think about what you could have done the last four minutes of those games. What could you have done differently?' I did that and I went out to see Coach. We start talking and I said, 'I have the homework assignment you gave me.' He looked at me and said, 'Those weren't for me; those were for you. What do you think?' I said, 'I might have done a couple of things differently, but for the most part, I went by the book.' He said, 'What book?' I said, 'Excuse me.' He said, 'Where's the rule book that says you should kick here or punt there or do this? Ron, you've played enough football that you should know the difference. Stop doing the safe thing and do the best thing.' He was great. That kind of led to the 'Riverboat Ron' thing."

[CanadianCat]

The forgot to mentioned how he then went on to win coach of the year 2x. 

Pretty good article IMO. 

[Cary Kollins]

 'Where's the rule book that says you should kick here or punt there or do this? Ron, you've played enough football that you should know the difference. Stop doing the safe thing and do the best thing.' He was great. That kind of led to the 'Riverboat Ron' thing."

 

funny how he forgot all about this

 

[steven8989]

Funny thing is he still goes for the safe bet, LMAO.

[panthers55]

58 minutes ago, Cary Kollins said:

 'Where's the rule book that says you should kick here or punt there or do this? Ron, you've played enough football that you should know the difference. Stop doing the safe thing and do the best thing.' He was great. That kind of led to the 'Riverboat Ron' thing."

 

funny how he forgot all about this

 

 

25 minutes ago, steven8989 said:

Funny thing is he still goes for the safe bet, LMAO.

Not so sure that is true at all. If I remember correctly between him taking chances and the analytics support from Tepper, I think we went for it on 4th down most times when we crossed the 50. Maybe someone can look at the stats and confirm or deny that.

[frash.exe]

that started the post-rule book era of ron

now we’re in the post-post-rule book era

[Billy Love]

So tell me, when is Ron going to start following John’s advice? Ron is still too conservative and predicable.

[Billy Love]

Ron’s problem is he still doesn’t have the natural instinct to know when to take chances and when to play it safe. 

He’ll punt on 4th and 1/2 yard on the openents 10 Yard line and turn around and go for it on 4th and 6 on our own 40.

 

[X-Clown on 1]

It's impossible to not read that in John Madden's voice...

[L-TownCat]

1 hour ago, X-Clown on 1 said:

It's impossible to not read that in John Madden's voice...

"heh-heh, BOOM!"

"Brett Favre"

[catnip]

The problem with Rivera is that when we have a lead, he takes the foot off the gas instead of putting a foot on their neck.

Last year we let too many teams back in the game after having a lead .

[CMAC22]

They forgot to mention the "Missed Opportunities"!

[tiger7_88]

5 hours ago, CanadianCat said:

"Mr. Richardson said, 'I think you need a mentor and I would like you to call.' So I did. He did me a favor. John said, 'I know you were 3-13 in games decided by seven points or less. I want you to go back and look at those 13 you lost and think about what you could have done the last four minutes of those games. What could you have done differently?' I did that and I went out to see Coach. We start talking and I said, 'I have the homework assignment you gave me.' He looked at me and said, 'Those weren't for me; those were for you. What do you think?' I said, 'I might have done a couple of things differently, but for the most part, I went by the book.' He said, 'What book?' I said, 'Excuse me.' He said, 'Where's the rule book that says you should kick here or punt there or do this? Ron, you've played enough football that you should know the difference. Stop doing the safe thing and do the best thing.' He was great. That kind of led to the 'Riverboat Ron' thing."

Holy fugging poo, what a charlatan.

[arbnranger]

Madden more so than anything else.