Ron Rivera | Former NFL Head Coach

Alrighty, hour number three of our radio program.

That's right. It is the Zach Gelb show inside USAA's Army-Navy Radio Row. And now joining us is of course one of our favorites. But I enjoy this guy a lot. Nobody enjoys him more than our update anchor. And that is Rich Ackerman, who worked with this guy for many, many years.

And he of course is Ron Rivera, kind enough to join us right now. I had to mention Ack because if I don't mention Ack, they'll never talk to me in the office ever again. Well, I promise you Zach, as soon as I get out of this, I bet I get a text from him too.

Yeah. And also for your birthday too. Ack is always, anytime you're close in the birthday, he gets it. Ack's a good dude. You know, we worked together when I was in Chicago, kind of in between my playing career and my coaching career. And became friends and, you know, him coming in from New York to Chicago, he didn't know a lot of folks.

So we had him over for Thanksgiving dinner and, you know, really got to know him even better. Ron Rivera here with us. So there's a lot to get to in the NFL landscape. Let me start you off with the Bears because I know they're near and dear, close to your heart. This year, you know, they ended up bringing back Matt Eberfluss.

It didn't work. Now we'll see who they end up hiring as their next head football coach. They have the quarterback.

The quarterback's still got to grow, but there's just that stench still around the organization. Will they ever be able to get it right? I believe they'll get it right.

I really do. Just because the situation, circumstance they're in. I think what they've done there is they've put together the assets that you need around a young quarterback. First of all, look at the defense. You've got a good solid defense. They perform well. They have the ability to perform well. And if you get a quarterback that can manage games, which he did do at some point, you saw how well it impacts the defense.

It really does. Secondly, you have enough playmakers around him, okay? You've got a good receiving core. You got a good young tight end that's still playing well. Your running game is on the verge of being really good.

Now you got to protect them. If there is, I think, something that needs to be worked on and massaged a little bit is the offensive line. I think the offensive line can play better. I think you have talent there, but you may have to add some more because when I was in Carolina, one of the first rules we had was identify your franchise quarterback, okay? We didn't have one, so we said we got to go get one. Now we go get one, you've got to protect them, and you got to put playmakers around them, and you got to support them with the defense.

And those were the things that we believe we had to do, and that's what we went about doing. The next year we drafted Luke Kuechly, and next thing you know, we're off to the races. When you look at the Panthers now, when they benched Bryce Young, I thought that was it for him. And then he came back, and man, we've seen a different Bryce Young where I don't think they're taking a quarterback in the draft this year, and he's their guy next year.

I don't think they need to. I think what happened was brilliant, and I went through the same thing when I was here in Washington my first year, and we had a young man in Dwayne Haskins, and we started off with Dwayne. Things weren't going the direction they needed to be.

He wasn't playing the way I believed he was capable of, so I benched him and went with the veterans. And what happened was you do two things. One is you got to make sure you put your arm around the young guy and say, look, this isn't the end of it.

How you handle this to what you learn from this is what's going to make or break you, okay? And I know Dave Canales did that, and he did that with Bryce, okay? The thing that I appreciated was the way Bryce handled it. Bryce was attentive. He was supportive. He was willing to learn and grow.

He didn't take this as I'm getting slapped down. No, he was a teammate that helped. He was what was best at the time for the team. Andy Dalton, credit to him, he mentored the kid. He helped the kid. So because Bryce did what he did, you know, everybody said, okay, he's working at it. Then what you do as the head coach, you tell these guys the other 50, hey, we can win.

Let's go. Well, that's what I went through, and Dave went through the same thing. And what happened was because Bryce did the things you needed to do, when Dalton got hurt in that car accident, he had to play, and he played well, and his teammates recognized it. And next thing you know, everybody's starting to rally around the kid. Credit to Dave Canales.

He started changing the way he was approaching the game and the plays that he was calling, and that really helped Bryce's development. Now all of a sudden, you got a young man that people are saying, hey, you know what, this may be the future. So we go through all your stops. We know that we're here in DC.

We talk about the commanders. I don't think you were like this way, but I have to ask it. Are there like conflicting emotions? Because this was your team, and now you're seeing them succeed to a really high level. No, for me, there's some gratification too, because I do know, you know, dealing with what I dealt with for the last four years, the whole idea was to put this team in position, and that's where this team is now. Credit to what's gone on with Coach Quinn coming in, doing the things that he's done. You know, the draft pick they made I thought was really good, and Jane Daniels. I love what Cliff Cleansbury's doing with him and how he's using him. One of the things that I did, you know, now that I was involved with the NFL Network is I started tracking the play of the young quarterbacks.

Okay, and I included Bryce in that too on some of the things that I worked on. And a lot of things that you were seeing being done here were the things that you have to do with these young quarterbacks. Quick throws. Get the ball out of his hands.

Two reasons. Quick throws tell you you got to make quick decisions. Get the ball out of your hands.

Decrease the opportunity to be sacked. Okay, well, you saw that Bryce was the other way. He was holding the ball too much, too long, getting himself hit. Well, then what happens when he comes back out?

What do I see? Quick throws. Getting the ball out of his hands.

Doing those types of things. Second thing, running game. Good running game is very important to a young quarterback, right? Now all of a sudden I start charting that and I'm looking at it.

I look at Jane Daniels. Plays off of play action were big numbers, good numbers. All of a sudden Bryce's numbers off of play actions, they started jumping. So there's a formula there with young quarterbacks and that is you got to have a good running game.

Why? Because a good running game helps increase the credibility of your play action. So there is a lot of positive things that have been happening for those kids. Well, you look at what they're doing in Washington with the commanders and again, credit to what Cliff Kingsbury doing with the offense, credit to what Dan Quinn has done with the team. And I'll look at these young quarterbacks around the league, you know, guys that are year one or year two in. I know it may not look so pretty from a statistical standpoint or a winning standpoint, but a guy like Drake May, you got a young coaching staff, new coaching staff coming in. You also have really, I could say this as a Patriot fan, one of the worst offensive lines in the league and no number one wide receiver. And that's what a franchise quarterback does is he does more with less and that's what you're seeing. That's exactly what you're seeing. And what you want to do is what you really want to see is you want to see things that quarterbacks that are franchise quarterbacks, they elevate the play of the people around them and they elevate the play of the other side of the ball.

Okay. And they do that because when you are playing good football and you're running the football and you're chewing up the clock and you're managing the game, not turning the ball over, you're keeping your defense off the field, you're keeping them fresh. And you see that from teams that do that and do it very well, like the Eagles. They're one of those teams that when you watch, when that offense is clicking, that defense is rested and they're coming out and they're taking the ball away and putting the offense right back on the field.

You had to deal with a lot with the commanders. We don't really need to go into detail with it. I thought a lot of times you had to answer for the owner, but you know what it's like to be in a difficult situation when there's a lot of controversy. I'm not comparing this directly, but you look at the Eagles right now. You have a week where Brandon Graham was out for the year, starts off the week talking about how the relationship isn't good with AJ Brown and Jalen Hurts anymore.

They've had to respond about this all through the week. We just saw in Philly last year, they were 10 and one, and then down the stretch, they were miserable. There was problems in their locker room.

They have talent to go win the Super Ball this year. As a coach, when there is, I don't want to say outside noise because it's created from the inside, but when there's noise like that and negative attention, how do you kind of nip it in the bud and move on so it doesn't derail the season? Well, I think one of the things you got to do, first of all, is you got to address it, especially if it's coming from inside. That's just my personal opinion is that that's something I think you address. It's something you get taken care of right away because the thing you got to understand is we want to focus on what's important, not what's interesting. What's happening is they're making something that's interesting important, but if it is coming from inside, it truly is, and if that's the issue, it is important. It needs to be nipped right now, and I think that's something that should be addressed and addressed internally and really pushed to be kept internal because that's our business.

That's nobody else's business. What was your reaction the other day when you saw the news? We knew that Belichick interviewed for the UNC job, but then when he got it? Well, you know, it's funny because I thought that's brilliant because I don't know if you've seen, but you've seen that conversation with these billionaires talking about buying college football teams. Yeah, well, what's happening is there may be this influx of money coming in all of a sudden, and think about this, and Coach Belichick may be ahead of the curve right now, but think about you get this influx of money, you're creating really a springboard for these players to get into the NFL, and if you get enough of these billionaires, let's say you get 32 of them, and all of a sudden you got 32 billionaires, 32 NFL teams, I don't know, maybe we got a mini NFL coming up, maybe you have two conferences, four divisions in each conference, and now you have a feeder system. This potential could be what could be happening, and football, to me, football should be its own entity in college sports, and the other groups should go back to their regular conferences. Yeah, because that's all the money is. All these schools, they chase the money, and I don't blame them for doing so. But they're only really chasing the money for football. Yes. And maybe basketball. In some select places.

But leave the Olympic sports, the other sports, to compete regionally instead of having to travel across the country to play and spend all that money. Well, I'll ask you this. You were established, right? You had a lot of good days as an NFL head coach. If one of these colleges called you up, would you be interested?

I think I would. I think the thing that I have to do is really look at the circumstances, situation, and the commitment. I promise you, Coach Belichick, that was one of the things he was probably going through in the discussions is, hey, I need commitment. Just because I'm showing up doesn't mean we're instant winners. If I'm showing up, I need commitment from all you folks to come in. That's what will make us the winner is if we come together and do this together. I promise you, this one thing he's not going to accept is, if you're not going to commit to me, why would I commit to you? So you have to have commitment to do something at this scale, at that large.

There has to be commitment from a lot of folks. Do you feel like you've coached your last down as a head coach in the league? No. What's been interesting is I've got this 10,000 foot view. I'm looking down at the game now in terms of looking and seeing. I'm noticing things. I'm looking at things. I see people doing things that I've done. I say, wow, that's how I used to do it.

Look at the success they're having. What I am doing is right. Or, wow, that's another way to do it. I like that idea. I like the way they're doing those things. So I'm kind of getting a chance to evaluate myself, evaluate the things that I've done, and kind of think about some of the things I would do differently and how I would do them.

So if someone asks you, why is Ron Rivera going to be a head coach again in this league? What would that differently kind of look like? I think it would look a lot like some of the things that I've done and some of the things I'm going to change. I really do. I think I've learned enough now to understand what it takes.

The last four years, or actually the last three years, I did more managing of situations and circumstances than I did coaching a team. That's what I wanted. You didn't have a quarterback. I know.

You know what's funny? I said that. Somebody asked me, what's the difference between your team and these teams? I said, well, quarterback.

They kind of said, no, it's true. This is a quarterback driven league. If you have a quarterback, you have a chance.

It doesn't matter where he is in the stage of his career. As long as he is a serviceable guy that can manage and control and make plays when he needs to, you've got a chance. In this league, you do. But if your quarterback is okay, not as serviceable, it's hard sledding. If you don't get the call to be a head coach this year, would a coordinator still interest you or no? Yeah, the right situation.

Again, there's a lot of things that I can contribute. You get a really young, young, young first-time head coach, I promise you he's going to make a million mistakes. And he's not going to know how to handle his mistakes unless he has somebody that's been through it there to help mentor him through it. Leslie Frazier is doing that in Seattle as the assistant head coach there. And he's helping Mike McDonald through these things and look at where they are as a team. Last thing I'll ask you, just because I don't know your relationships and all of them, but a guy like Ben Johnson, right? It's my favorite part of football right now is watching his offense because it's just so fun to watch. And it's like, wow, I wish that was my team right now.

But there's been a lot of times, right? More times that it hasn't gone the right way than it does, where that young hotshot offensive, a defensive coordinator, when they become a head coach, they're just not what they were as a coordinator. What do you hear about Ben and why do you believe that maybe he could be a great head coach? I think he can be a really good head coach because of his creativity.

The things that he'd have to learn, obviously, is you're now in control of the whole room. And this is one of the hard things for these young guys is that they want to be the primary play caller too. So you've got to manage 53 players. You've got to manage 16 on your practice squad. You've got to manage the injured guys. You've got to manage every facet of football operations.

You've got to manage the coaches as well and then game plan and prepare for the next opponent. And so there's a lot. There really is. And there's not a lot of Andy Reeves. There's not a lot of Bill Belichick out there.

Not a lot of guys that do that and do it very, very well. So I know you've worked with USAA for many years. I remember talking to you for years at the Super Bowl. But kind of tell me just what this game means to you, Army-Navy. Well, you know, it means a lot for me because I grew up in a military family. And one of the great escapes you always had in the military, from what I understand, has always been sports. Sports has been something that draws people together.

It bonds them together and also reminds them of home. It's really neat to have soldiers when they come back or they come watch practice. Boy, I really appreciate you guys playing on Sundays, man, because when we were over in the Middle East, this was our great escape.

This was really cool. Well, for us as kids that grew up in the military, sports really was our avenue. So watching the Army-Navy game was a big deal for us. And my dad was in the Army for 32 years. So I'm cheering Army.

Go Army. And I really do appreciate USAA being involved because USAA's salute to service with the NFL has been a really cool thing. One of my dad's proudest moments for me personally was when I won the USAA Service Award.

And that was a really big deal. He helped present it to me and it was a big thrill. Well, Coach, always great to catch up to you. Good health and appreciate you doing this. Thanks so much. Exactly. Appreciate you. Thanks for the time.