Here at Cat Scratch Reader we have counted down the final 100 days leading up to the Carolina Panthers season opener by for at least the past ten years. We’ve always done this by highlighting the current player on the roster whose jersey number matches the day on the countdown. This year, we decided to change that up a bit by counting down our own list of the Top 100 Panthers of all time. This does not correspond to jersey number, does not need to be somebody who wore a jersey, and will in no way be controversial.
#37. Ron Rivera
The Panthers haven’t had a lot of coaches in their relatively brief existence in the NFL, but two in particular stand out head and shoulders above the rest. The first was John Fox, who came in at number 45 on our countdown. The second was the coach that followed right after him and ended up being almost a carbon copy—Ron Rivera.
Rivera’s start in the NFL came as a rotational linebacker for the Bears in the 80s and 90s, including on the infamous 1985 team that won the Super Bowl. He briefly went in to the media after his playing career before rejoining the Bears as a defensive assistant in 1997. He again left for a short time to join Andy Reid’s staff on the Eagles as linebackers coach before again returning to the Bears, this time as defensive coordinator. He departed after three years to join the Chargers, where he started as linebackers coach before being promoted to defensive coordinator.
He was hired as head coach in Carolina in 2011 after the firing of John Fox. Rivera had long been a hot name in coaching circles, so his hiring was seen as a win for the Panthers and a long overdue promotion. While the Panthers had a significant bounce back from the wayward ending of Fox’s tenure, the team struggled to win close games with Rivera’s uber conservative decision making a common scapegoat. In his third season, with the Panthers floundering and his seat heating up, Rivera flipped his decision making and started leaving the offense on the field for more fourth downs. The Panthers went on a franchise best winning streak in response, and the Riverboat Ron nickname was born.
The Panthers ended up making the playoffs that season with a 12-4 record. The following season didn’t go as well, but Rivera still got the team into the playoffs with a 7-8-1 record by leading them to four straight wins to close the season. That proved to be a bridge to what would be the best Panthers season of all time. Led by MVP Cam Newton and an opportunistic defense, Rivera’s Panthers won their first 14 games of the season en route to a 15-1 record. They carried that momentum into the playoffs, where dominant wins over the Seahawks and Cardinals took the team to the Super Bowl. There, they were taken down by the Broncos’ dominant defense.
The Panthers struggled to recapture that form in the following years. They did rebound in 2017 to go 11-5 but were unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs by the Saints. Both of the following seasons ended with losing records, and Rivera wouldn’t even see out the end of the second of those. He was fired in 2019 after the team started losing games again after the magic of the Kyle Allen experience had worn off.
The Ron Rivera era is kind of hard to accurately describe. On one hand, he’s been inarguably the most successful Panthers coach in history with the most wins in franchise history along with three division titles and four playoff appearances. On the other hand, he had six losing seasons compared to just three winning seasons and never seemed to consistently get the team over the hump despite some very talented rosters in some respects. It’s the best we’ve ever had it, but it also feels like we could have maybe even had more.
However you slice it, Rivera was the best coach the Panthers have ever had, and he’s a great human being. That slots him in at number 37 on the top 100 Panthers of all time.
