Ron Rivera was fired by the Carolina Panthers before the team’s Week 14 matchup with the Atlanta Falcons.
On Tuesday, football fans saw the second head coach fired in the middle of the 2019 season after the Carolina Panthers decided to move on from Ron Rivera in what can be best described as a surprising move.
Back in October, the Panthers appeared to be on their way to a playoff berth after overcoming an 0-2 start to win five of their next six games.
What made this even more impressive for Carolina is with Cam Newton dealing with an injury, the Panthers were able to accomplish this with Kyle Allen under center.
During September and October, the future appeared to be bright for Allen on offense with his impressive level of play, and this even helped take some of the pressure off Rivera since the former head coach was quickly on the hot seat entering Week 3.
Now that Rivera is officially out of the picture after the Panthers are coming off a brutal Week 13 loss to the Washington Redskins, the next question becomes where the former Panthers head coach could possibly end up in 2020.
Joining a team as an assistant may seem like the best option at the moment for Rivera, but depending on what happens over the next few weeks with certain teams having head coaches of their own on hot seats, Rivera may be able to land another head coaching gig.
Some teams may prefer to avoid giving Rivera this much responsibility after seeing how things ended in Carolina since dating back to last season, this team arguably deserved to be in the conversation of a true playoff contender.
But since the offseason for some teams will be less than one month away, let’s take an early look at some potential landing spots for Rivera in 2020 for teams that could be looking for a new head coach.