An observation on Rivera

[Chaos]

During the pregame show Saturday night they did a piece on Ron Rivera, and showed clips of him at practice running drills. He was playing the role of QB and having the defensive players run up from behind and practice swatting the ball out of the QB's hand. Then they showed him firing some tight spirals to a couple players. The guy is definitely involved in the skills training.

[Double34Trouble28]

From what it looks like early on, it seems Rivera has a very nice approach. He seems to possess the right mixture of discipline, playing knowledge, and candidness but at the same time keeps the players happy. He takes no crap and I think the players know that, but they don't view him as a Coughlin type disciplinarian. But still, if I were a player I wouldn't want to disappoint him. His talk with Goodson on the sidelines after the fumble seemed to really highlight this. He was stern, but supportive. I love the guy so far.

[CatMan72]

I believe this, Rivera was hired because he's a teacher... not just a coach.

[CatMan72]

I remember the video of the practice where Corvey Irvin jumped offsides and Rivera yelled at him... attended plenty of Fox's practices and can't remember seeing Fox yell at anybody like that.

I think it's clear that Rivera takes a much more hands-on approach.

[Achilles]

Based on what I've seen from camp and the first pre-season game, I'd say Rivera is certainly the most "hands-on" coach we've ever had, in terms of getting in there during practice, addressing mistakes mid-game, etc. It is WAY too early to say that he is the best. In fact, as painful as this is to say, Fox is still the best we've ever had (and it turns out that was worth 3 winning seasons in 9, so....). I give Rivera 3 years to make a deep playoff run. What I've seen so far tells me he is a good fit. I def. think he will make it three years here.

I also like the "teaching" mentality. You know Fox and staff had to do a lot of that when they first came in, but after a while of doing it exactly the same way for 9 years, it got stale and predictable. And the coaching staff obviously DID NOT consider themselves "teachers." They were a bunch of play callers. I think a lot of this teaching is just necessary with a new system, but WHAT a breath of fresh air it was (from the 3rd series on) last Sat. night!

Anyway, my 2 cents is that Rivera looks to be a great hire and a perfect fit. We have plenty of talented players on this roster and really good coordinators. I am more in line with keeping expectations down; this team has a LONG way to go to be even a .500 club and DON't get your hopes up about playoffs this season. We have a brutal schedule, a brand new system, a rookie QB, and are in the best division in football.

I don't think this guy is taking us to the moon in one season, but maybe we can get things off the ground and win 7-8 games. If we get some lucky bounces, win the turnover margin, etc. we could make some noise, but were not getting out of this division this season.

[mj4life]

with the new cba rules i think teams that scout,draft & develop players the best are going to be teams that win on a regular basis. i read somewhere that we can expect something like 25 to 30 percent roster turnover yearly because of free agency & teams cutting players to get under the salary cap. so having a solid system from top to bottom is going to be a must

[rayzor]

You will still see a lot of running on 3rd and 15 this season, our QB's and WR's aren't quite ready for too many wild blitzes.

never mind the fact that they are practicing every week against the team who will probably be the most blitz happy in the league.

this team will be a WHOLE lot more prepared for defenses like that then they were at any point under fox because of th defense they have to go against all the time. it won't be that soft cover bend but don't brake defense. it will be against the super aggressive rivera/mcdermott defense. i'm not worried about this team dealing with blitzes. they'll get the hang of it early.

[rayzor]

I believe this, Rivera was hired because he's a teacher... not just a coach.

and because he is willing to do whatever it takes to win, not just do the same thing every week and hope it is enough.