Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera says he’s searching for answers to solving the team’s string of disappointing losses. He just isn’t finding them.
“If we were losing games by 14 points, OK, we're not good enough. But when you lose close games, you are good enough. There's something missing,” Rivera said Monday during his weekly press conference at Bank of America stadium. “There's something we have to find and we've got to get past and through those things, and we've got to make plays.”
The Panthers have lost five of their last six games in which they've held a lead in the fourth quarter. The team blew an 11-point lead Sunday late in the 4th quarter before losing 27-21 in overtime.
Several questions concerned Rivera’s future. Pressure is building for Panthers owner Jerry Richardson to fire him. Rivera said he's still the right coach for this team, and he thinks his players believe that too.
“We're doing the things the right way. It’s not completely obviously because we've lost too many games in close situations. But I think with the way these guys come to work, there's a commitment that they're still doing, that they're still making, and I like to believe as long as those are things you see for these players that we're doing some things the right way.”
And Rivera said he expects Richardson to stick with him through the rest of this season.