No Commander in Washington, Ron Rivera fired by the Washington Commanders
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LANDOVER, Md. (PSF) - After having a dwelling 26– 40–1 record in four seasons, head coach Ron Rivera has been fired by the Washington Commanders. Rivera only brought the Commanders to one playoff appearance which led to them losing the Wild Card round to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-23 concluding Rivera’s only postseason trip with Washington.
Once that first season came to an end, Rivera never made a competitive run to win the NFC East division and never fought for a playoff spot again in his tenure as head coach. He made a lot of key players misused offensively with arguably a high talented wide receiver core containing 5-year veteran Terry McLaurin and other wide receivers Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel with also having tight end Logan Thomas in the mix as well. With this and having rookie quarterback Sam Howell, Ron Rivera disappointingly wasted a high potential offense but ended the 2023-24 season ranked No. 24 offensively.
Rivera was never able to get the defense where he wanted it to be and especially this last season ending ranked last defensively giving up on average 388 yards per game. Even though the Commanders have defensive lineman Jonathan Allen, and Daron Payne, the defense is atrocious in the passing game, giving up 262 passing yards per game and need to fix the secondary. Ron Rivera never fixed it, and that is another reason why he’s been fired. If maybe the defense was better than what it is now, Ron Rivera maybe would’ve bought himself some more time in Washington to bring success to them.
Nonetheless, the Commanders are moving on without him, and they still have an opportunity to do good things this offseason to set them up for success in the future. The Commanders have the 2nd overall draft pick in the 2024 and may look to target the defensive secondary more to reduce the passing attack most teams have achieved when playing the Commanders. The team is on the right path with having a young team, it’s just about finding the right motivating head coach to put them in the best position possible.