Rivera's ouster almost logical

Life is a bit mysterious at times.

Just ask former Bears’ defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, a head coaching candidate for half a dozen teams in the past two years who was told Monday that his services would no longer be needed despite guiding one of the league’s best defenses to a Super Bowl berth this past season.

It became apparent the past few weeks that Rivera was a victim of circumstance, failing to land any of the positions because his team was either still in the playoffs when the vacancies were filled or because he lacked experience as a head coach. That’s life in the NFL for a coordinator looking to move up in the coaching world. Do poorly and don’t be considered, do too well and miss the chance to be hired. Sure. He had two more opportunities after the Bears season ended, one with Dallas and the other with San Diego. But considering that both teams were playoff teams this past season, it became obvious early in the process that they were searching for a coach with experience. And that’s exactly what they found in Wade Phillips and Norv Turner, respectively.

It made sense that Rivera would leave the Bears after failing to land a head coaching position. Coordinators understand the dilemma they face and realize their chance of becoming a head coach can be sabotaged by their own success. So they often find success and build their reputation in one place only to move to a less talented team for one season. This way, if their less talented team doesn’t make the playoffs, their stock isn’t lessened and they are able to accept head coaching positions immediately following the regular season. It’s exactly what Marvin Lewis did in Baltimore and Washington before becoming the head coach of the Bengals a few years back.

Yes. If that was why Rivera left the Bears, it would definitely make sense. But that’s obviously not the case. If it were, he surely wouldn’t have agreed to take a smaller role on the San Diego Chargers staff. Yes. The Chargers. The team who had the most wins in the NFL last year. The team who boasts the best offense in the NFL and one of the top three defenses. The team who will be favored to win the Super Bowl next season. Ron Rivera just agreed to coach their linebackers. This isn’t exactly a way to assure yourself of not becoming a victim of circumstance the next time teams are interviewing for head coaching vacancies. A more logical choice would have been to become the defensive coordinator of…oh lets just say…the Oakland Raiders.

Something just doesn’t add up here. If it did, the Bears wouldn’t have waited until Monday to announce that Rivera, whose contract expired after the Super Bowl, wouldn’t be retained as the defensive coordinator. If the Bears knew that Rivera’s plan all along was to leave the team regardless of title, they could have avoided a public outcry and simply promoted linebackers coach Bob Babich to the position. Heck, even if the Bears plan was to promote Babich regardless of what happened with Rivera, it would have made more sense to do it early and cite the desire to move forward. No one would have questioned that. Surely the fans would have understood the team’s need to move on early in the event Rivera did land a head coaching position.

But no. They waited. And waited. And then for some reason, waited some more. Then Monday came, and Rivera was gone despite not becoming a head coach. The fans complained, as they should have. Gone was the defensive coordinator of the NFC’s top ranked defense. Gone was the only link this coaching staff had to the 1985 Super Bowl championship team. Gone was any sense of logic.

And for some reason, the reasons have yet to come.