Carolina Panthers Fire Head Coach Ron Rivera, Announce New Coordinators, Fans React With Joy

The Carolina Panthers announced on Tuesday that head coach Ron Rivera had been fired. The news came from Panthers owner Devid Tepper.

The Panthers have still been considered ‘in the hunt’ as we inch towards the playoffs. They are 5-7 on the season with games left against the Falcons and Colts on the road and Seahawks + Saints at home in Carolina.

Ron Rivera had been the head coach of the Carolina Panthers since 2011 and he was the Devensive Coordinator for the San Diego Chargers prior to that. It’s been announced that the Panthers made immediate staffing changes and released a statement on their website.

CHARLOTTE — The Carolina Panthers have parted ways with head coach Ron Rivera, owner David Tepper announced Tuesday.
Secondary coach Perry Fewell has been named interim head coach. Offensive coordinator Norv Turner will transition to special assistant to the head coach, and quarterbacks coach Scott Turner will serve as offensive coordinator.
“I believe this is the best decision for the long-term success of our team,” Tepper said. “I have a great deal of respect for Ron and the contributions he has made to this franchise and to this community. I wish him the best. I will immediately begin the search for the next head coach of the Carolina Panthers.”

“We are going to take a comprehensive and thorough review of our football operation to make sure we are structured for long-term sustained success,” continued Tepper. “Our vision is to find the right mix of old-school discipline and toughness with modern and innovative processes. We will consider a wide range of football executives to complement our current football staff. One change that we will implement is hiring an assistant general manager and vice president of football operations. We all must recognize that this is the first step in a process, but we are committed to building and maintaining a championship culture for our team and our fans.” (via)

Panthers fans went into this season fully expecting to win the NFC South and compete for a spot in the Super Bowl. That’s where the level of confidence was at. Then a few injuries hit and the expectations shifted, but nobody expected that much talent to be 5-7 on the season through 12 games.

The Panthers shared the news on Twitter and fans went nuts:

https://twitter.com/lced_cam1/status/1201956915040919552

https://twitter.com/FuckTrou/status/1201956946498260992

https://twitter.com/3×5/status/1201957599576543232

The Panthers aren’t really ‘in the hunt’ if we’re being honest. No team with a losing record through 12 games of the season is going to make a deep run in the playoffs anyway. But I guess this is the potential spark needed to get the Carolina Panthers back on track.

Rivera took the Panthers to the Super Bowl in 2015 where they lost to the Denver Broncos. In total, he took the Panthers to the playoffs four times and had a 3-4 record in those 7 playoffs games.

As a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, I fully welcome chaos in our division anytime it has the potential to throw off our rivals and while this firing could be good for the organization it could also send them into a downward spiral for years. Only time will tell.