Washington Football Team's Ron Rivera Looks To Continue "Riverboat" Magic in Year 2

Impressive First Year Provided WFT With Identity, Direction and a Division Championship

Ron Rivera arrived in Washington and inherited a three-win team that had no true identity - literally - and had not made the playoffs since 2012.

Presto, the Washington Football Team became NFC East division champions.

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Sure, there are asterisks adorning Washington's division title won with a losing record. Regardless, "Riverboat Ron" - as advertised - righted the ship and pushed it further into a successful direction. The team still has a long way to go, but it has two things the team didn't have before he arrived: identity and direction.

Even though Rivera's team won't have a new, true identity until 2022, the charismatic coach's fingerprints are all over his team. WFT's strength is a smash-mouth defense, led by Defensive Rookie of the Year Chase Young.

WFT had a lot to fight for last season and faced more adversity than most teams had all season long. On top of COVID precautions, it had a distractions with the team's new name, sexual misconduct allegations in the front office, a quarterback controversy and, above all, a new coach battling cancer. Rivera seemingly underwent chemotherapy treatments with a shrug, while maintaining a competitive, ultimately championship football team.

Despite those odds, this team took the adversity, turned it into fuel and eventually gained momentum via a four-game winning streak in December that led to a title.

Rivera leading a team past adversity with this brand of toughness should not have come as a surprise. Maybe people were shocked by how swift the turnaround was, but the fact that it happened should surprise few that have followed Rivera's career.

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At his previous head coaching post in Carolina, Rivera took a two-win Panthers team to a Super Bowl within five years. 

And in his nine years in Carolina, Rivera made the playoffs four times, making it to the Divisional Round in three of those years. 

During Rivera's playing career with the Chicago Bears, he cultivated his grittiness as a member of one of the best defenses of all time, the iconic 1985 Bears. That Super Bowl win remains the only title in his near-40 years in the game.

He's been close to number two. The appearance as head coach in Super Bowl 50 wasn't even his closest one. Perhaps the three Philadelphia Eagles teams he was on staff for that made it to the NFC Championship could have taken the Lombardi home or the 2006 Bears, who lost in the Super Bowl to Peyton Manning's Colts.

Rivera has shown signs of this magic touch of improvement since he was in college at California.

Former Sports Illustrated contributor Michael Silver, who recently joined the Washington Football Team as a columnist, recalls some of his moments at Cal that foreshadowed what we are seeing today with the Washington Football Team.

Silver states in his piece, "Ron Rivera asked me to come aboard, and there's no one I'd rather follow."

With Rivera's history of overcoming heaps of adversity and instilling a strong sense of trust amongst his players, it's evident that we are currently witnessing a team on the rise in Washington. What we expected from Rivera, only a little sooner.