I am admittedly not a Panthers fan, but I have found the conversation around David Tepper interesting, namely because the NFL world has decided, seemingly overnight, that he’s the stereotypical caricature of a meddling, arrogant owner that is torpedoing his team’s chances of winning. I don’t think that he’s necessarily been THAT bad—or that there’s even enough evidence to conclusively deem him the primary problem in Carolina yet. It seems like some of the discourse around his competence has been motivated by a desire to generate a cartoonish new Jimmy Haslam-esque owner to ridicule: people love skewering the owners (not unjustifiably so), and the asshole hedge fund guy who’s team sucks is an easy target.
I definitely think that there’s been cause for concern with Tepper: his management of his soccer team, replacing grass with turf that no one likes in an outdoor stadium (if you believe the NFLPA, it was rock solid when the Lions and Panthers played late last season), and his hiring decisions (you could say Rock Hill, but he’s hardly the first owner to get in a real estate dispute with the local government). But while his hiring decisions are concerning, I don’t find his firing decisions concerning. Ron Rivera was past his sell by date when Tepper got there in the first place and the team was on the decline. Matt Rhule was a total disaster and honestly got longer than some owners would’ve given him (he made it to a third season with a 10-23 record). Reich has been totally out of his depth, his offense has looked ARCHAIC, and their quarterback of the future is going backwards. Would you have retained any of these coaches? It doesn’t do anyone any favors to keep a lame duck coach just for the sake of optics. Yeah talking heads shit on you for it, but that’s probably because they’re friends/acquainted with lots of these guys. It’s easy to say “Frank Reich should’ve gotten another chance with Carolina” without being able to actually justify it in any way other than he’s a nice guy and it’s bad practice to fire coaches in less than one year.
Not to mention, people have praised many of the same moves that have blown up In Tepper’s face. Just look at the threads in this subreddit when they hired Reich, Thomas Brown, or drafted Bryce Young. From the Thomas Brown thread:
- “This is an all star staff”
- “Panthers are killing this offseason”
- “I’ve loved all of the coaching moves the Panthers have made”
- “The difference between Rhule’s staff and Reich’s staff is night and day”
From the Bryce Young thread:
- “Carolina didn’t screw this one up”
- “He will be generational”
- “Electric whenever he’s healthy”
- “Very obvious pick”
For better or worse, people largely seem to like Tepper’s moves in real time. And even though it’s become accepted as fact that Tepper overrode Reich on Bryce Young, more people would’ve picked Young first overall than Stroud, and at least one reporter (Russini) has directly contradicted that and reported the organization was unanimous in favor of Young. How much evidence really is there that Tepper made Young a fait accompli to Reich?
TL;DR The Panthers’ coaches have sucked and were justifiably fired. People have seemed to like Tepper’s moves as they’ve happened and the criticism feels like Monday morning quarterbacking. Tepper’s easy to hate and that could cloud assessments of his ownership. Maybe Panthers fans can provide some context that I missed?