Even when Ron Rivera gets misinterpreted, he’s using it as a teaching moment for his team.
And the lesson is the Panthers have to begin their work over again, rather than thinking they’re starting halfway down the path after losing Super Bowl 50.
Rivera told Jenny Vrentas of TheMMQB.com that planning how to avoid the Super Bowl hangover has been his biggest challenge of the offseason, leading him to study how other coaches have handled the loss.
“It is really important we don’t lose sight of what we accomplished, but the truth of the matter is, we didn’t complete it,” Rivera says. “That will continue to be the emphasis: We want to get it done.”
Sometimes in teaching that lesson, things get a little sideways. After Rivera made reference recently to quarterback Cam Newton needing to improve, he then felt compelled to clarify that he wasn’t putting his quarterback “on blast.”
But he admitted that part of what he’s trying to teach his team this offseason is that all of them can get better at their craft.
“Someone said, ‘You put Cam on blast.’ I did that to everybody,” Rivera said. “I talked about Luke [Kuechly]; Luke knows he can become a much better pass-cover guy. It is a challenge to everybody that, hey, we were pretty good, but honestly, I think we can be better. I did it right after practice [last week], and I just wanted to make sure they understood that there is a sense of urgency, even though there are 107 days left.”
Knowing the number of days left until the start of the season is symbolic for Rivera, as he knows how difficult the task in front of him is. No Super Bowl loser has returned to the final game since the 1991-93 Bills, and even though the Panthers plowed through the NFC with a 15-1 record last year, he’s taking nothing for granted.
That’s why he’s working so much on fundamentals in OTA, trying to get his team working the way last year’s did, rather than trying to pick up where they left off.
