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If the NFL Network is on the ball, Ron Rivera, known fondly in the East Bay, will be hired as head coach of the NFL’s Washington franchise in a matter of hours.
And if Adam Schefter knows his stuff (he does) Rivera, a Cal Bear in the early 1980s, will quickly commence building his staff starting with another son of the East Bay — Jack Del Rio, a high school three-sport man among boys at Hayward High, who grew up to be the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
Rivera, a linebacker at Cal, was the 1983 Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. Using that experience as a springboard, Rivera played nine years for the Chicago Bears, including the team’s ridiculously dominant 1985 season that ended in a Super Bowl victory. Then he used that experience as a springboard to a nine-year gig as head coach of the Carolina Panthers, whom he led to a 76-63-1 record, a Super Bowl, and during which he was voted NFL Coach of the Year. Twice.
Del Rio played linebacker at USC and was a consensus All-American in 1984, the season after Rivera earned the same honor at Cal. He played 11 seasons in the NFL with four teams.
As a head coach he worked 12 seasons for two teams, Jacksonville and Oakland. The Jags can claim just three playoff appearances in the past 20 years. Two were on Del Rio’s watch. The only Raiders’ postseason appearance in the past 17 seasons? That was Del Rio’s work.
Yes, sure, right you are — not many fans put their money down to watch coaches talk into their headsets. But this parochial partnership warrants monitoring. Especially considering Washington hasn’t won a playoff game in a dozen years. That’s exactly the kind of heavy lift with which Rivera and Del Rio have experience.
That isn’t just me talking.
The Ron Rivera-Jack Del Rio team in Washington will be a strong one. In 2002, Del Rio took over the league’s worst defense in Carolina and turned it into the NFL’s second-ranked unit; in 2012 he took Broncos from 20th-ranked defense to second.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 31, 2019
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