Ron Rivera’s 1 bad decision hurt Washington’s playoff hopes vs. his old Panthers team

Washington coach Ron Rivera not only didn’t get any revenge against his old team Sunday, he also got a surprise hammering that was partly his own fault.

Carolina’s 20-13 road win over Washington didn’t knock the Washington Football Team out of the playoffs, but it did set up another roadblock for the former Panthers’ coach in what has been a year full of them. And Rivera brought some of this on himself, sticking with overmatched quarterback Dwayne Haskins until midway through the fourth quarter Sunday, even as the Panthers kept pounding Haskins on one drive after another.

The result was that Rivera was on the wrong side of the Carolina-Washington game for the second year in a row. On Dec. 1, 2019, his final game in nine years as head coach for Carolina came against Washington. In that one, the Panthers blew a 14-0 lead and lost 29-21. Rivera was fired two days later. This time it was Haskins who got fired — Washington waived him Monday afternoon in a surprise move. Losing to the Panthers in 2020 can be a death blow to a career: first, Atlanta coach Dan Quinn got fired,. Then Detroit coach Matt Patricia got fired. Then Haskins got released.

Washington (6-9) could have clinched the underachieving NFC East and a home playoff game by beating Carolina (5-10), which had gone 1-8 over its last nine games.

Instead, the WFT now has to beat Philadelphia next Sunday night in Week 17 in the NFL’s final regular-season game (8:20 p.m. kickoff) to earn that postseason slot and likely host Tampa Bay in a first-round playoff game. If Washington loses against the Eagles, the Dallas-New York Giants winner (played at 1 p.m. Sunday) will instead take the NFC East.

Rivera, who has fought cancer this season and navigated a number of team-wide controversies that had nothing to do with him, finds himself in another difficult spot. Always an optimist, though, Rivera said afterward: “We still control our destiny. I mean, that’s the truth of the matter.”

The Panthers honored their former coach before the game with warm-up gear that read “Rivera Strong,” supporting his cancer fight. But they also wanted to beat him badly, and they did in large part because Washington’s offense was horrid for 3 1/2 quarters until Rivera yanked Haskins and put in former Panther Taylor Heinicke with 9:08 left in the game.

Most of the questions directed at Rivera in the postgame had to do with when and why he pulled Haskins, who had already been stripped of his captaincy and fined earlier in the week for breaking COVID-19 protocol in embarrassing fashion.

Washington was down 20-3 at halftime, and Haskins had already committed three turnovers himself. That was the time to bring in Heinicke because Haskins was doing nothing good (and in fact would be released less than 24 hours later).

Rivera, though, pointed out that Washington had also been down 20-3 to Seattle the week before and that Haskins had then led an unsuccessful but decent comeback attempt.

“When we came out last week, we were able to move the ball and put points on the board,” the coach said. “So I was hoping for that same thing.”

He stuck with Haskins another for another 1 1/2 quarters, even though Rivera has already benched Haskins before this season, demoted him to third team, and certainly knew his flaws well.

Rivera will start Alex Smith next week if he can — Smith was hurt for this one — and Heinicke if he can’t. Heinicke looked good, leading Washington to one late TD and very nearly another, but for a fourth-down TD pass called back by a holding penalty.

Sunday, Rivera wasn’t riding his Riverboat. Down 17 points late in the third quarter, he took a short field goal instead of going for a fourth-and-2 at Carolina’s 8-yard line. He would explain later that the team needed three scores regardless. And he didn’t go with the relatively unknown quantity Heinicke until the situation was desperate, preferring the known but badly flawed quantity in Haskins.

It cost him — but maybe not that much.

Rivera and Washington have one more chance to salvage this playoff berth, by beating a Philadelphia team that got crushed, 37-17, by Dallas on Sunday. Win that one, and Washington and Rivera will make the postseason anyway.

But Sunday, against his old team, was still a punch to the gut.