Why Ron Rivera is the perfect fit to be the next New York Giants head coach

While some New York Giants fans are leery of the idea of the team making Ron Rivera the next head coach of the team, mainly due to his ties to general manager Dave Gettleman, he is the ideal candidate following his dismissal from the Carolina Panthers.

In case you have missed any of Pat Shurmur’s infamous post-game press conferences following any of the last eight consecutive losses by the New York Giants, this team is a “historically young” team. Shurmur is correct in stating that they are young, as 23 of the players on the 53 man roster are either rookies or in their second year in the league.

Historically young is a bit of an overstatement by the current Giants head coach, as the team is currently the ninth-youngest team in the league. That said, they are starting a large contingency of young players, with 8 of their 10 draft picks from the 2019 draft starting at least one game this season, the most of any team in the league this year.

As a result, the youngsters need a coach who is seasoned and not learning on the fly like Pat Shurmur. Enter Ron Rivera, who has spent over nine and a half seasons as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers. During his tenure with the team, Rivera amassed a record of 76-63-1, with a record of 3-4 in the playoffs, including a Super Bowl birth in 2016. Rivera would end his career as the winningest coach in franchise history.

Perhaps more important than his successful record with the Panthers is the fact that Ron Rivera was a man who was absolutely revered. He was respected by his players, as could be witnessed by the kind words that were delivered via Cam Newton on his Instagram account. Rivera was beloved by the Charlotte community and the Panther fans as a whole. Finding a fan base with a high level of satisfaction for their head coach is a rarity in today’s sports world, with most fans never feeling fully satisfied that their team’s head coach accomplished enough.

Rivera is regarded as a leader of men, someone who leads by example in the way he conducts business both on an off the field. Members of the Charlotte media reportedly knocked Rivera for regularly bringing his wife and children to the facility. However, Rivera stated that he did so to set example for players as to how to treat their significant others and children, citing how many players came from broken homes and were not familiar with a cohesive home life.

The trend in the NFL currently is to have a defensive minded head coach, who employs an offensive guru as the offensive coordinator and play caller, and Rivera certainly fits the bill for this trend. Rivera, who was the defensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears from 2004-2006, helped lead them to have one of the best defenses in all of football. The 2006 Bears defense would help vault the team all the way to the Super Bowl, where they would ultimately lose to the Indianapolis Colts.

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The amount of respect that Rivera had from his former players, with many referring to him as a father-like figure, whom they deeply respected, makes him an ideal candidate for a young Giants team. Rivera has been able to maximize the performances of the players on his rosters. Christian McCaffery blossomed into one of the best running backs in the league under the coaching of Rivera, which leads one to believe that he would be able to utilize Saquon Barkley in a manner that restores him to the levels of his historic rookie season, something Shurmur has been unable to accomplish this season.

In addition, Rivera would be better suited to put some of the young defensive players in a better position to succeed than the current coaching regime has with players like Deandre Baker and others. Teams under Rivera have had notably good defenses, something the Giants have not been able to boast in almost a decade.

The one caveat about hiring Ron Rivera would be his lack of any analytics personnel on staff. Should the Giants decide to make him their next head coach, they must implore that he adds analytics to his coaching repertoire to assure he remains with the times.

After suffering through two bumbling head coaches in Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur for the past four years, Giants fans deserve a head coach with a history of success, who is a leader of men, a man of high morals, who has a strong presence in the community.

Ron Rivera checks all of those boxes and Dave Gettleman, who hired him in Carolina, should be calling his old friend up immediately to gauge his interest in coming to New York (if he even is the one making that hire). Rivera has stated that he is still interested in coaching and the New York Giants would be the ideal team for him to fulfill that desire.