Mr. Scot

No Dan Quinn?

I'm not even gonna try and predict the outcome of this circle. I'm just hoping for the best

So apparently Yahoo Sports did a similar poll, with Charles Robinson and Jori Epstein asking six "highly positioned" sources (three coaches and three personnel people) to rank the leagues head coaching opportunities from best to worst. Ranking NFL's open head-coaching jobs: Coaches, execs pick league’s gigs from least to most attractive Here's their writeup for the Panthers. 7. Carolina Panthers (7 points: one sixth-place vote, five last-place votes) Owner first” was the measuring stick of one executive and every coach when it came to approaching each of these openings, and the external view of Panthers owner David Tepper was generally not positive within the poll. And it went beyond the drink-tossing incident in Carolina’s season-finale against the Jacksonville Jaguars. That was certainly noticed, but the issues highlighted by the group focused more on the turnstile nature of employment at both the head coach and general manager positions, as well as the persistent belief that Tepper had a significant hand in multiple quarterback decisions over the course of his ownership. The bottom line: Tepper is seen as someone who inserts himself into football evaluations in which he lacks the proper depth to make seasoned decisions, and also is a threat as a micromanager to his coaching staffs. One other lingering issue that was a surprise: It didn’t go unnoticed that nearly one year ago, former head coach Matt Rhule filed a lawsuit against Tepper over nearly $5 million in severance that Rhule believes he is owed. That dispute remains unresolved in the league’s arbitration system, but it’s certainly not a great look when a seemingly mercurial owner is fighting a former coach over money. As one executive said, “[W]ith Tepper, it seems like a f***ing miserable place to work.” Beyond Tepper, the bones of the team are not considered to be promising in the near term, which is an issue when paired with the belief that the club owner lacks patience. There are a handful of promising young players, but the quarterback, Bryce Young, struggled significantly in his rookie season, giving pause to the idea that the position is adequately resolved. Carolina is also hobbled in the next two drafts where it concerns premium draft picks, having traded away its 2024 first-rounder and 2025 second-rounder to the Chicago Bears in the move that ultimately netted Young for the Panthers. For a roster that looks like it’s in need of a high-percentage reboot, lacking two premium draft picks in two years is a solid negative. Particularly when the reboot/rebuild/retool has already resulted in the first overall pick in the 2024 draft going to the Bears, and making it likely that the 2025 second-rounder (also going to the Bears) will be another high choice in that round. The one upside mentioned by two of those polled? Carolina’s roster is well positioned for a two-year teardown, with a solid amount of salary-cap space this offseason, and a potentially massive amount of space after the 2024 season. That means the Panthers have the runway to extend the handful of current players worth keeping long term, then ample cap space to accentuate the next two draft classes with some free-agent signings in March of 2025. Quotable: “[Carolina] is the place that you really need to take stock of your current job,” one polled executive said. “For me, I’m really happy to be where I am and we have a great future ahead of us and a great quarterback, an awesome staff. It gives you something to think about and [reinforces] being patient rather than just saying ‘It’s 1 of 32’ and feeling pressure to take the first chance you get. The Panthers, just because of the instability with the owner and that roster needing so much work, it’s not the best shot you can take, that’s for sure.”

Summing up today... I know Johnson is scheduled for tomorrow but I don't know if anyone else is.

If Belichick goes to the Falcons, he won't be taking Bill O'Brien with him...

Some would argue he deserves better than that.

This sounds somehow... familiar

Hell, I'd feel comfortable with it being pinned if the mods so desired.

I don't give him a pass because there are things he should have done that he didn't. But I do acknowledge he was put in a terrible spot.

Houston beat writer analysis of Slowik...

Frank Smith. (getting Callahan wouldn't really surprise me either)

I don't think that was ever an option. Tepper wanted it to go down this year. It was just a matter of but it would take to make that happen.

John summarizing the latest...

It's life the debate we have with Young. Can we fairly evaluate him while he's constantly running for his life? Probably not. Similarly though, how far is it to evaluate Reich in a situation where he was being undermined in more than one way?

Sure it does. It isn't enough just to know that you failed at something. You have to know why or you'll likely just wind up repeating the same mistakes. And for the record, I know who I'm agreeing with when I say that. And yes, I hate it

Our being last on the list was assumed. That's not the value of the article though. The bit about Tepper encouraging assistants to talk about other assistants is big time cringeworthy.

Yeah, that news just hit.

Perhaps, but realistically what else can you do? You have to try.

Not according to Brown himself. I've seen it acknowledged that Reich and McVay both influenced things philosophically, but not on a practical level.

And yeah, a lot of this boils down to the common story of what happens when good guys go to work for a--holes... Frank Reich and Scott Fitterer were both considered pretty solid people, but they went to work for a boss who seemed to think JR Ewing was a role model. If you're the good guy in that situation, you have two choices: keep trying to be the best person you can amid the chaos or just give in and become the bad guy. Reich took the former path, while Fitterer apparently turned to The Dark Side (or at least took some advice from it). That path hardly ever works because the natural bad guys will always be better at it.

Yes and no... Reich didn't set this scheme. Thomas Brown did, and I think Reich encouraged that because he wanted to help Brown and other assistants along in their career. The problem: Brown wasn't good at it. As head coach, It would have been on Reich to see that and try to fix it. Instead, He handled it in more of a Ron Rivera fashion by not doing much directly and just kind of hoping he'd learn and get better. If we were able to see the full story, I think you probably find several incidents where Reich trying to be a nice guy and do the right thing ultimately heard both him and the team.

Oh, I absolutely think it's wrong for a football team. Harsh criticism is fine, but say it to my face, not behind my back to the owner.

That's been applied to a couple of different situations where I'm not sure there was any validity.