Is the team’s Plan B good enough?
August 28, 2020
by Steve Thomas
The news about Washington head coach Ron Rivera’s cancer diagnosis last week was certainly unexpected and stunning to the entire fanbase. I’m not going to pretend to be a doctor or speculate about his condition or treatment plan, but what is a worthy topic of discussion is the team’s reaction to the news.
As a bit of background, the then-Redskins fired former head coach Jay Gruden after game 5 last year and then fired longtime team president / egomaniac Bruce Allen after the end of the season. They also then turned over a large amount of the other front office staff and moved team legend Doug Williams out of his personnel position into the player development role. When Rivera was hired, he was brought in as the commander-in-chief of all things football, filling the role of general manager (something the franchise hasn’t had for a long time other than a couple years of Scot McCloughan) and head coach. Rivera brought in a bunch of his own guys from Carolina to not only fill the coaching staff but a significant number of the football operations positions as well.
If Rivera has to take time off for treatments – which, again, not a doctor, but seems likely – the obvious answer for interim head coach is defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio. He actually has several more years of experience as an NFL head coach than does Rivera and already seems to have been granted carte blanche to run the defense. Del Rio is more than capable of running practice and developing game plans for as long as necessary. In fact, Rivera himself addressed this in a press conference last Saturday, stating,
“As I said, we have a Plan B as you guys have heard. It involves [defensive coordinator] Jack [Del Rio] stepping up. He’s been through this before when he was with Coach [John] Fox in Denver. So, we’ve got a guy who’s been a head coach in this situation before. That’s what the plan is. I’m not going to talk anymore about Plan B, just so everybody knows. Secondly, just so everybody knows, Plan B will be implemented on the days where I will struggle. Believe me, I’m not being rosy about this, I’m being honest. I’m going to struggle. So those days that I do, I’m going to have to ask the coaches to step up and I’m going to have to ask the players to step up and take ownership. So again, I understand the significance of what I’m going to be going through. I understand how tough it’s going to be, but again, those days that I can be on the field I will be on the field and those days that I can’t, I won’t. And you guys will see it. If I’m there, it’s business as usual. If I’m not, it’s Plan B. I don’t expect that to happen. I hope it doesn’t happen.”
It isn’t ideal to lose a head coach for any length of time but Washington is in about as good of a position as any team to deal with this contingency. At first glance, to me, the bigger question mark is about the impact of Rivera’s absence on the rest of the organization. Rivera is essentially the general manager of this football team – he’s been given ultimate authority, and he’s both establishing the organizational culture and making the final decisions. Given that, certainly, an extended absence will have an effect on the organization, but there are two reasons why I believe that things will be okay for awhile if Rivera is either out or working in limited capacity for a few months.
The first is that because the team is about to enter the regular season, most of the front office roster building tasks are already done. Draft evaluation and free agent scouting won’t pick up in earnest for awhile, particularly if the college football season is limited. Simply put, there won’t be a vast amount of important decisions to make until after the season ends, and that won’t happen until January, which hopefully gives Rivera time to overcome his medical challenge.
As to the second reason, I give my Hog Sty colleague Rob Henson credit for pointing out that since most of the front office staff are longtime associates of Rivera, they are more than capable of implementing his strategy without him being fully engaged for some period of time. This is not a situation where an entirely new front office staff is being put together on the fly while about to enter into the peak evaluation season. This is a group who are in the low part of the year in some respects, and who are already aware of what Rivera wants and how he operates. It’s not ideal, but it seems logical that they can get by without him for the time being.
Finally, the recent addition of Jason Wright as the team president provides another level of organizational stability that will be a benefit to the entire team in Rivera’s absence. One positive aspect of having a new senior executive is that the burden of being the team’s spokesman for all issues is now directed in part to Wright. Prior to Wright’s arrival last week, Rivera seemed to be put into the spotlight to speak for the team on every issue. That’s now Wright’s job for all things not having to do with the on the field product. Wright, not Rivera, will be the one to mostly deal with the Washington Post’s most recent sexual misconduct allegations about the team, for example.
Therefore, I don’t think Rivera’s diagnosis represents disaster for the team as long as he’s able to undergo his treatment and return to his duties on a full-time basis at some point. In my view, as a result, there’s no reason to lose the sense of optimism that Rivera brought with him into Washington.