A great hire … but call us skeptical
MIKE BURKE
Allegany Radio Corporation Sports
I believe Dan Snyder got it right this time. Of course, he’s gotten it right before — Marty Schottenheimer, Joe Gibbs 2, Mike Shanahan — before proceeding to successfully undermine his own good work each and every time.
I’ll say it here as I have said it each time owner Dan Snyder hires a new football coach — and this is the eighth time he’s done so in 19 years — he should never have fired Norv Turner, particularly not one season removed from a division championship and with the team still in contention for another one.
Snyder should have let the Never Nervous Norval tenure end naturally, because Norv had gotten the Washington Redskins out of the abyss he inherited seven years previous after the disastrous Richie Petitbon era (which was all of one season).
The great Joe Gibbs era (the first and only great one) had come to its end, and Petitbon received the Good Soldier hire from owner Jack Kent Cooke and inherited an aging team that had just crossed the line on its best days.
Norv started from scratch and, in time, made the Redskins division champs and contenders, but that wasn’t good enough for the diminutive lad from Montgomery County with the lucky Redskins belt buckle, and eight head coaches later, it’s now Ron Rivera’s turn at the lectern.
“If I wanted the money I’d still be out there trying to pit teams against each other. I took this job for one simple reason,” Rivera said moments after being introduced by Snyder, who started his comments by wishing all in attendance a Happy Thanksgiving (seriously).
“Because Dan Snyder came to me with a very interesting perspective,” Rivera continued. “For weeks he’s explored the reasons why some teams win and some teams don’t. He told me the common factor in that transitional success for teams like the Patriots, Seahawks and Chiefs and some other ones was the decision to take it and make it a coach-centered approach.
“Not an owner’s centered approach or a team president or a GM, but a coach-centered approach. I told Mr. Snyder that I appreciate the fact that he believes the head coach matters.”
I think we’ve heard this one before, eh, Marty? Eh, Shanny?
The 57-year-old Rivera, who was 76-63-1 in eight-plus seasons as the Carolina head coach, has been brought in to form the “new culture” the Redskins owner believes the team and the franchise need.
Out with Jay Gruden, out with Bill Callahan and out with the Prince of Darkness, Bruce Allen, and Hail to the Redskins, Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio, another solid pro football man, who seems to be the right choice as well to be the first lieutenant of the much needed new culture for the sports brand that defined and carried the Washington metro area for decades, but is now laughed at and basically ignored by its once fanatical legion of fans.
Never in a million years did any of us dream it would be possible for the Redskins to be the punch line to jokes at Washington cocktail parties — or worse, insignificant. But given the Capitals’ Stanley Cup title and annual runs, the Nationals’ World Series title and the Wizards holding the basketball-mad city and area through the winter months, the Redskins had become the minor-league professional team in the nation’s capital, and they became so at Dan Snyder’s hand.
“One thing is very, very important,” Snyder said on Thursday. “We’re going to have one voice and one voice alone. And that’s the coach’s.”
If this holds true, there couldn’t be a finer, more capable voice to guide the Redskins than Rivera’s. It will be a new culture, and it will be a productive culture. If it is allowed to cultivate.
“Everything as you see it today (will) be different,” said current Redskins cornerback Josh Norman, who played for Rivera in Carolina. “I’ll say that … because he gets the best out of his players.”
There is an ownership philosophy shared on both ends of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and that ownership philosophy is this: “It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as it’s me.”
Certainly, the baseball Baltimore Orioles and the football Washington Redskins find themselves precisely where their respective owners have put them. Yes, the owners most definitely deserve and receive the credit for that.
As the Orioles enter further into their own rebuild under the direction of the two sons of the owner, a new day dawns for the Redskins as well, under the direction of the owner himself.
As good of a hire as Ron Rivera should be, as long as the Redskins’ ownership culture stays the same, the song with remain the same as well. And that song ain’t gonna be “Hail to the Redskins!”
Mike Burke writes about sports for Allegany Radio and Pikewood Digital. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s County Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984. He was the sports editor of the Times-News for nearly 30 years. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @MikeBurkeMDT