National Football League

Ron Rivera surely knows the shakeup in Washington will soon get to him, too

Published Nov. 24, 2023 5:10 p.m. ET

Josh Harris hasn’t said much about his plans for the Washington Commanders since officially buying the franchise for $6.05 billion in July — except that he always intended to take a full season to evaluate the franchise.

His plan was to be patient, but by now his patience has surely run out.

If that wasn’t evident from the look on Harris’ face as he watched the Commanders get humiliated by Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, 45-10, it certainly was apparent Friday morning when he green-lighted the first of many personnel changes coming to his struggling team. He let head coach Ron Rivera fire defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio and defensive backs coach Brent Vieselmeyer — scapegoats for a defense that has become one of the worst in the league.

And as he did it, Harris expressed his frustration and disappointment in a prepared statement, saying "I feel exactly how our fans feel today."

If he does, then he must feel, at least in part, an eagerness for Harris to blow the entire franchise up and make sweeping changes that will hopefully restore it to at least a glimmer of the proud organization it once was. That means getting rid of everything from the toxic Dan Snyder era — including Rivera.

Even Rivera clearly knows it, even if he doesn’t want to discuss the fact that he’s probably next.

"No, I’ve told you before I’m not worried about anything," he said Thursday when asked about his job security. "All I’m going to do is do my job and see how things go. That’s the only thing I can do."

Harris hasn’t officially said whether Rivera will finish out the season, but he certainly hinted at it in his statement Friday. He said he spoke with Rivera and that "all of our energy for the remainder of the season" will be on improving the team and evaluating what comes next. The fact that he said "our" energy and "the remainder of the season" certainly seems to indicate that Rivera will be part of the process, at least until the season finale on Jan. 7.

After that, there's seemingly no way that Harris can justify keeping the 61-year-old Rivera on board — at least not as head coach or the man in charge of personnel. His record in four seasons is a disappointing 26-35-1. Rivera probably needed to make a run at the playoffs this season to have any hope of keeping his job, but at the very least, his team needed to show some real progress. But at 4-8 and having lost five of their last six games and eight of their last 10, there clearly is none.

The final straw was probably the embarrassing 31-19 loss to the New York Giants (3-8) two weeks ago, when their third-string quarterback, Tommy DeVito, absorbed nine sacks and still torched the Commanders defense for three touchdowns and 246 passing yards. If that wasn’t it, any last hopes for Rivera were surely broken Thursday when the Cowboys pulled turkey legs out of the Salvation Army kettle on the sidelines to celebrate their big win even though the game wasn’t over — a celebration they had clearly pre-planned, assuming the game would eventually be out of reach.

Harris and Rivera were smart enough to know that someone had to go after those disasters, even in a season that's unsalvageable. And Del Rio and Vieselmeyer were easy and obvious targets. Del Rio’s defense, which was ranked third last season, ranked 29th heading into the game at Dallas, and it was struggling long before the deadline deals that traded off defensive ends Chase Young and Montez Sweat. The Commanders are also giving up a league-worst 32.9 points per game.

And Vieselmeyer’s secondary has been a disaster. The Commanders have given up a league-worst 49 pass plays of 20 yards or more. Cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, their first-round pick, has endured a nightmarish rookie season, too.

Rivera said over the last two weeks, "it just kind of snowballed, and I was concerned." He admitted that he had thought about firing Del Rio and Vieselmeyer for weeks but felt pushed into it after the result in Dallas.

"If you don’t change things," Rivera said, "can you expect things to change?"

That’s a question Harris has surely asked himself, especially since Rivera deserves plenty of blame for this ugly season, too. But the truth is, there’s little point in changing head coaches at this point in the season. This isn’t Las Vegas where, according to reports, Josh McDaniels was hated in his own locker room before he was fired and a switch to a more popular coach like Antonio Pierce had a chance to keep the team in the playoff race. Rivera has always been well-respected by his players. And all but the faintest playoff hopes are clearly gone.

So, unless Harris feels he needs to see how offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy can run a team in a completely no-win situation, he’s right to let Rivera continue to steer the ship for the next six weeks, even if it’s inevitable that it will sink. Rivera was brought in to bring some semblance of professionalism to the franchise after Snyder had turned it into an ugly circus. He needed to be the leader that kept his players focused on football, not the sideshows. And he did all that.

The next six weeks aren’t going to be much easier. Everyone knows the season is virtually over and the end of the Rivera era is near. A man like him is needed to keep them focused and working and playing hard for the sellout crowds they are once again drawing to their awful stadium. They need to make sure Sam Howell, their young, franchise quarterback continues to develop and everything doesn’t completely collapse around him. And Harris can benefit from Rivera’s honest evaluation of every part of the team, too.

Then the big changes will surely come — the new head coach, the new general manager, a ton of new players, and eventually a shiny, new stadium somewhere, too. And whether Harris wants to say it out loud or not, the firing of Rivera is as inevitable as it is necessary. It might be unfair to a coach who was thrown into an impossible situation, but if Harris meant what his statement said, that "our fans deserve a team that can compete with the NFL’s best and win sustainably over the long-term" then he knows that cleaning his dirty, old house is the only way to get that done.

On Thursday, that process clearly started, and there is no doubt that it will be thorough. Everyone will just have to be patient a little while longer before the rest of the housecleaning starts.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.