Ron Rivera pens heartfelt tribute on Twitter after John Madden’s passing

The NFL community and sports world as a whole was dealt devastating news on Tuesday when it was reported that legendary Raiders coach and iconic broadcaster, John Madden, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 85.

Madden’s influence on the game is almost impossible to measure.

As a coach, he led the Raiders to seven AFC title games and a Super Bowl win in 1976. His 103-32-7 regular season record speaks for itself and his .759 winning percentage is tops amongst NFL coaches who presided over 100 games.

As a broadcaster, Madden is widely recognized as the best color commentator in league history and his “Madden” video game franchise, which debuted back in 1998 and is still a huge deal, helped millions fall in love with the sport.

Though he didn’t play, Madden might go down as the most influential individual in football history. Speaking strictly in terms of coaching, his expertise continues to inspire a host of current NFL head coaches.

That includes Washington Football Team boss Ron Rivera, who was shaken up by the news and took to Twitter to pay homage to Madden.

Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera paid tribute to John Madden after the NFL icon passed away on Tuesday.

Much like most first-time head coaches, Rivera didn’t hit the ground running early on with the Carolina Panthers, amassing a 13-19 record over his first two years. While he was satisfied with his team’s effort, the end product wasn’t cutting it, so Rivera turned to Madden for advice after the 2012 season.

The biggest lesson Rivera learned from the coaching legend? To be more aggressive and not second-guess his gut, so it’s fair to say Madden helped the two-time AP Coach of the Year adopt his famous “Riverboat Ron” nickname.

Here’s Rivera’s recollection of their meeting.

"“‘You’ve played enough football, you’ve got a good football team. Go with your gut instinct.’ I said, ‘Well, I was just going by the book,'” Rivera recalled.“He looked at me, said Ron, what book? So there’s a whole book about making those types of decisions, those decisions are made by guys that have experience and understand the game. The guys played the game because of coached the game just like you have. Use your gut experience. Use your intuition. You have enough of it. You know how to do it.’ And so I’ve kind of kept that mentality going into my third season.”"

Care to guess how the Panthers fared after Rivera met with Madden? By going 12-4 in 2013 and notching their first of three straight NFC South crowns. That run culminated in a Super Bowl appearance in 2015 after Carolina finished 15-1 thanks to Rivera and a groundbreaking season from Cam Newton.

Rivera hasn’t quite been able to replicate that success in the years since, but nobody can deny the imprint Madden had on his coaching career.

If you went around the league today and asked every head coach if Madden influenced their style of coaching, almost all of them — save a few of the younger faces who were recently hired — would say yes.

Rivera, though, was one of the lucky ones who go to pick the late Hall of Famer’s brain and have him as a mentor. Regardless of how his tenure in Washington ends, Rivera will carry those pointers with him for the rest of his life because they greatly improved the trajectory of his coaching career.