Ron Rivera's time in Washington came to an unsurprising conclusion at the end of the 2023 season, marking the second time he's been fired as head coach in his career.
This time, his future seems much less certain. It's not often a coach gets three opportunities to lead a team, meaning Rivera's most likely path back to a sideline is as a coordinator, a scenario he's interested in making reality.
"I have several opportunities right now," Rivera told ESPN. "I just want to make sure it's the right one."
Rivera added he's had multiple conversations with individuals and teams, but offered nothing more on what might be ahead. More importantly, he explained how his assumption of defensive coordinator duties following the in-season firing of Jack Del Rio reminded him of how much he'd missed coaching football at a granular level.
"I would've loved a different model just because, in hindsight, now you really see how much more time you spend on personnel and as a coach, that's not necessarily what you want to do," Rivera said of the hierarchy in which he operated as the man in charge in Washington. "What I really enjoyed more than anything else the last five weeks was just being right in the middle of everything. Now your only focus is just that one thing. That's what you do; you want to teach."
Rivera admitted he made some mistakes in his final season in Washington, including in how he presented his sunny outlook on quarterback Sam Howell's potential, which he eventually realized amounted to a public anointing of the second-year passer as the franchise quarterback. Rivera explained he'd unintentionally placed unnecessary pressure on Howell, who he still believes can be a starter in the NFL.
"He didn't deserve to have that put on him,"
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