Washington Redskins

Washington Redskins sign Ron Rivera to 5-year deal

The Washington Redskins wasted no time landing their new head coach, signing former Panthers coach Ron Rivera to a five-year deal.

A deal was all but certain after Ron Rivera was reported to be at dinner last night with Washington owner Dan Snyder and former United States President Barack Obama. Michael Silver reported early this morning that a deal had been done, making Rivera the 30th head coach of the Redskins.

The five-year commitment was announced by Ian Rapoport and makes sense as a way to bring stability to an organization that fired head coach Jay Gruden earlier in the season and parted ways with team president Bruce Allen just this week.

Rivera, who coached the Carolina Panthers to a Super Bowl appearance (they lost to the Broncos in Super Bowl 50), brings experience to a team that has had four winning seasons this century and hasn’t won a playoff game since their Super Bowl win after the 1991 season.

Rivera is well respected by many around the league and could bring a winning culture to a team in rebuild. With Bruce Allen now gone, Rivera may get a bigger say in how the team is put together.

This is Ron Rivera’s second gig as a head coach after his nine years from 2011-2019 with the Carolina Panthers. Before that, he was the linebackers coach for a year before becoming the defensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers (2007-2010) and was the defensive coordinator before that for the Chicago Bears (2004-2006).

Before becoming a defensive coordinator, he specialized as a linebackers coach with the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999-2003 and did defensive quality control for two years in 1997 and 1998 with the Bears.

His ability to coach a defense and particularly linebackers came from his experience playing linebacker in the NFL for Chicago from 1984 to 1992. He was a part of the famous 1985 Bears defense that dominated the league on a way to a Super Bowl win.

Because defense was his specialty, having a struggling defense in Carolina played a part in his firing. He’ll have a lot of work to do with Washington’s 27th ranked defense, who gave up 385 yards per game in 2019.

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