The Reasons Frank Reich Was Fired by Panthers Owner David Tepper
David Tepper, the owner of the Panthers, has a saying among his football staff that is said to originate directly from the world of high finance.
Prevent making two mistakes at once.
This catchphrase may help explain both what transpired in Charlotte on Monday morning and the difficulties he continues to face in making the difficult transition from managing a hedge fund to managing an NFL team. It may also be the best way to relate how he manages a hedge fund to how he has managed his football team.
Frank Reich is no longer with us. Over the past few weeks, Tepper’s internal dissatisfaction with the situation had become increasingly apparent, and the writing had been on the wall.
However, there are more important questions for the team going forward, the most of which revolve around the Panthers’ position in the owner’s absence as they enter what is anticipated to be a very competitive coaching market. After the team and coach flirted fairly seriously with Tepper last year, a former Carolina employee predicted on Monday that Tepper would return to Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and try to entice the 38-year-old with a large sum of money.
And the harsh, unspoken truth is that he might have to. Because there is only one question that needs to be asked of any potential Reich replacement, as well as other candidates considering positions within that company—especially those with options, which Johnson should have—and that is: Is David Tepper the owner I want to go work for?
The record Tepper has amassed since being accepted as the team’s owner—after paying $2.275 billion to acquire the team from Panthers founder Jerry Richardson—would cause anyone to pause. After Reich was fired, Tepper oversaw his third midseason firing. As a result, Perry Fewell, Steve Wilks, and Chris Tabor will have been the team’s interim coaches for 22 of Tepper’s 99 games as owner when this miserable season comes to an end.
Put differently, after six years, Tepper has had a temporary coach for 22% of his games.
How does that come about? That adage, “Don’t let one mistake become two,” applies here.
According to a former Panthers staff member, “his thing is, the minute it gets bad, it’s going to get worse, so we better try something else.” He works for a hedge fund; that’s what people in hedge funds do. They remove their money from it, keep the profit, and move on to something else as soon as it stops making money.
A former coach of the Panthers claims, “He doesn’t care about the money.” He views it similarly to stocks: you make a bad investment, incur a sunk cost, and then you simply move on.
On paper, that sounds good too. The issue in professional football is that, if you keep changing coaches, scouts, and ideologies, you eventually end up with talent pools that complement each other like ice cream and scrambled eggs.
Jeremy Chinn, a positionless defensive player selected to play for Matt Rhule, was good in his early career but was benched because he didn’t fit Ejiro Evero, the new defensive coordinator,’s defense the same way he did Phil Snow’s. Consequently, some of Ickey Ekwonu’s physical limitations—specifically, his length—showed up this year in a way that they didn’t last year for the left tackle, who played admirably as a rookie. As a result of the staff changes, Bradley Bozeman, another lineman, has experienced a similar outcome.
Tepper is very much the bearer of the blood from those mishaps. He is the one who signed everyone’s checks, selected the coaches, and decided to part ways with them.
With Brian Burns in his contract year and Derrick Brown entering one in 2024, as well as questions in key positions throughout the roster following the big-box trades involving players coming (Christian McCaffrey, DJ Moore) and going (Bryce Young) over the last year or so, whoever is selected to replace them will have a difficult task ahead of them.
Again, the question for any new coach will be whether Tepper is the right person to lead that kind of start-from-scratch project, which will need to be completed without the Bears’ top-five pick that they acquired in the Young trade.
Once more, whether Tepper is the right guy to oversee that kind of start-from-scratch project—which will need to be finished without the Bears’ top-five pick that they acquired in the Young trade—will be the question any new coach must answer.
The obvious portion of that equation is as follows: It’s obvious that Tepper is intelligent enough to pull it off.
From there, the question that has to be asked of every new owner is whether he can fit into the bigger picture of creating a profitable football operation. After all, it has been six years, and his record of 30-63 indicates that this hasn’t even approached happening.
I’ve spoken to people who have worked there, and they tell me there are issues, but they also make it plain that they think highly of Tepper personally.
One is that he naturally wants to apply his results-driven background to a business that is more process-oriented, given his background in that realm. As one former employee put it, Tepper “wants to be process-driven badly, but he’s not.” Simply put, his wiring is not that way. Which brings us back to the original point—that you should sell a bad investment immediately rather than waiting to see it through.
That leads to a more general problem, which is that he occasionally reacts too hastily.
The manner in which Reich’s staff was put together is one instance. Tepper believed Rhule employed an excessive number of underqualified assistants. After dismissing Rhule, he declared to the public that no Fortune 500 company would simply hire one person and then allow that person to hire everyone else. He questioned why professional football was run that way. He also thought it was great that the 49ers took advantage of the NFL’s incentive program to hire diverse coaches and scouts, and that the Giants reached outside of Brian Daboll’s network to put together a staff.
After Reich was hired, Tepper, who had good intentions, asked Reich to assemble a talented, diverse team that had depth and experience. Indeed, Reich made a lot of excellent coaching hires. However, their backgrounds and ideologies as coaches meant that it would always take some time for them to click. Reich’s issue was that the offense was not keeping up with the other units, and this was not changing or adapting enough, which was hurting the quarterback’s development.
Those present claim that Tepper has his hands in everything, which is problematic because he isn’t always in the building. That brings us to our second concern. He’ll be there for the road trips and from Friday through Tuesday during a game weekend, but he still lacks the daily background required to be that involved as an owner.
Nevertheless, Tepper doesn’t appear to be pressuring anyone to make decisions on a daily basis. He collects data. He offers recommendations. Nonetheless, he makes an effort to be a resource and is aware of his ignorance.
He’s not very good at the technical aspects of football. However, anything pertaining to probability, analytics, or market value is. And that’s when the locals believe Reich truly got stuck with Tepper.
It crystallized in a particular situation during the Thursday night game against Chicago in Week 10. Young failed to convert a downfield pass when the Panthers were down 16–13 and on second-and–10 at the Bears’ 41-yard line. Reich then blew his first timeout. After Young was almost picked on third down, Reich tried a game-tying 59-yard field goal from kicker Eddy Pineiro, whose career long was 54 yards.
The Panthers had insufficient timeouts to generate another legal possession, Pineiro missed short (a probability graphic on the Amazon broadcast indicated he had a 21% chance of making it), and the game was effectively lost.
One former Carolina coach states, “I knew Frank was done” at that point. That’s what [Tepper] is aware of. He is aware that’s not possible. You can’t f— up some of those high-percentage third- and fourth-down choices. He’ll be furious. Furthermore, he made his money by defying the numbers, so it’s not like you can’t do that. It’s when there are blatant absolutes—punting on a clear play or squandering a timeout, for example—that you lose possession of the ball. It’s the careless mistakes.
There were two instances of this in Week 12.
In the second quarter, the first occurred right before the two-minute warning. In an attempt to squeeze in one more play, Bryce Young hustled the offense to the line. He then completed a six-yard pass to Jonathan Mingo to move the ball to the Carolina 26. The timer came to an end. The Titans had 1:39 remaining when they regained possession of the ball due to an incompletion on the other side of the two-minute warning, which caused the clock to stop. Tennessee failed to get a first down and punted the ball back, costing the Panthers the game. They would in the next one.
Following that punt, Young found Mingo for an eight-yard pass that moved the ball to the Panthers’ 18-yard line, prompting Carolina to call a timeout. Then, deep in their own territory and needing just two yards for a first down, the Panthers proceeded to commit incompletions that halted the clock, forced a punt, and gave Tennessee a short field to drive for a 53-yard field goal.
To put it mildly, Tepper was not happy.
Tepper is now faced with a blank slate once more, albeit perhaps a cleaner one than in the past. Yes, Young is the quarterback, but aside from him and possibly Ekwonu, there aren’t many players on the team for whom it is certain that, in three years, they will still be with the Panthers.
And all of this may help him envision the qualities he might seek in a coach going forward. A leader who is tough enough to take criticism, create a plan, and manage all the major choices in the game the same way he manages the team’s overall structure.
That might be Johnson of Detroit, a young, whip-smart guru who you’d have to project as a leader but who trained under Dan Campbell, one of the best in the NFL in that area. Jim Harbaugh of Michigan, who contacted the Panthers last year regarding their opening and spoke with Tepper, might be the candidate. Harbaugh has a proven track record of developing successful programs and overseeing the day-to-day operations of games and seasons.
On the other hand, that individual will need to be certain that he wants to work for a boss who will challenge him and never stop searching for solutions—which might be advantageous for the right individual.
One employee from Carolina said, “I like it,” on Monday night. “I want someone who shares my intense desire to win.”
And there’s no doubt about that.
Tepper is a fervent competitor.
However, it’s still unclear whether he will be able to adapt to this unfamiliar NFL environment after six years.
