Adios, Ron Rivera

UKHTTC founder, Christian Burt, offers his quick initial take on the exit of Ron Rivera.

And so another failed chapter in the history of the Washington Redskins/Football Team/Commanders comes to a very expected conclusion.

Head Coach, Ron Rivera, has today been relieved of his duties and it seems the hapless Martin Mayhew is out the door as General Manager.

Under the Josh Harris Group, it seems certain that the model for future success will move firmly away from the failed coach-centric model that was introduced back in 2020 by Mr Happy Thanksgiving himself, the former owner of the team Dan Snyder.

It has been a rotten season for the Commanders in what was Ron’s fourth as the Head Coach of the team.

There has been little in the way of improvements throughout the Ron tenure. The draft, particularly the first round has seen the Commanders obsessed with value rather than elite talent. There cannot be a single draft 2020-2023 where you would not want to go back in time and redo what was done.

Washington could have taken Chris Olave, Kyle Hamilton and Christian Gonzalez and would be in a much stronger position right now. Such decisions rest solely on the shoulders of Rivera and his staff.

It would, however, be remiss not concede that Rivera was initially operating in an extremely difficult environment albeit one where he himself always seemed arguably too secure.

In 2020 he had little manoeuvrability in the draft: despite both Tua and Justin Herbert available at pick 2 with franchise QB potential, Snyder was insistent that Dwayne Haskins was the QB in burgundy & gold.

The “safe” pick that year, Chase Young, is now in San Francisco.

To this day, I still feel that Ron’s “prove it” response to LT Trent Williams was ill-judged – perhaps that relationship was already on the rocks, but can you imagine a Sean McVay telling TW that he had to prove anything?

There are some legitimate excuses for failure in Washington. D.C under Snyder was an absolute red flag for any serious NFL free agent stud and instead the Commanders paid their own. Overall, the likes of Terry McLaurin, Jon Allen and Daron Payne have performed well. None of whom were drafted by Rivera I should add.

As a final thought. Ron Rivera is a good guy, that is not in question.

He overcame tough personal battles off the field and treated people with dignity and respect during a tumultuous period in franchise history. I would not be surprised if his coaching career at an NFL level is now over, but there may be a non-coaching role for the league, particularly in areas such as diversity.

The future is exciting for the Commanders and, ultimately, excitement has been in short supply for the last four years: the right decision was made today by Josh Harris and there will be many more changes ahead.