Redskins-Panthers in Week 16 should be considered a big deal

Even if Ron Rivera won’t admit it, the Washington Redskins’ home game against the Carolina Panthers will be one of the most important on their schedule in 2020.

Ron Rivera is entering his first season as the head coach of the Washington Redskins in 2020. And in his first season in charge of the ‘Skins, he’s going to get a chance to play a home game against his former team, the Carolina Panthers.

Ahead of the schedule release, there was some intrigue around where the league would schedule the matchup. Though some anticipated it would be early in the season, the game will actually be the second-to-last on the calendar of both the Redskins and the Panthers, Week 16.

Is Rivera looking forward to that game and to showing his former team what they’re missing out on after letting him go following his nine years with the team? He wouldn’t admit to getting too hyped about the game during the NFL’s schedule release show on Thursday night.

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"It’s going to be a home game for us more than anything else. It’ll be so late in the season that the only people that will be making a big deal out it, in my opinion, is gonna be the media.If it had been one fo the first two or three games, I could’ve appreciated that. But being where they put it, right around Christmastime, I’m not sure that it’s going to have that much of an impact for me personally at that time."

It makes sense that Rivera is saying this. Neither the Redskins nor the Panthers figure to be competitive this year. And by downplaying the contest and referencing that it’s unlikely to be a “big deal,” Rivera is basically saying that it’s likely both teams will be playing for pride at that point in the season.

That said, team pride is still essential. And so too is building momentum for the 2021 season. The Redskins could do a lot to spark their young team with a Week 16 win, especially after a gauntlet of games against tougher opponents (at Cowboys, at Steelers, at 49ers, vs. Seahawks) in the lead-up to the Panthers game. So, they should have that circled as one of the few potentially winnable contests down the stretch of the season.

Beyond that, the game will be of some importance to Rivera. Whether he admits it or not, there’s probably a part of him that would like to beat the Panthers. He has a fantastic relationship with the team’s holdover players, many of the team’s front office members, and the great city of Charlotte as a whole. But being able to beat them at home in front of his new home crowd would surely be sweet for Rivera.

Simply put, it’s a revenge game, even if there is mutual respect between the two sides.

It’s somewhat disappointing that this contest isn’t earlier in the season, as it would’ve been a great early-season chance for the Redskins to build up some energy and get their new coach a key win. But having it late in the season could have some benefits, especially if the ‘Skins can win in Week 16 and Week 17 (at Eagles) to build a lot of momentum into the 2021 offseason.

Next. Five most pivotal game Redskins face in 2020. dark

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit. We’ll have to see how the rest of the offseason and the Redskins’ first 14 games go before we can break down this matchup in full. Expectations are low, but perhaps they’ll be able to pull off some nice upsets.

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