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Peter King on the Richardson's drama

ItsNotGonnaBeAlright

By ItsNotGonnaBeAlright,
in Carolina Panthers

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ItsNotGonnaBeAlright Newbie

ItsNotGonnaBeAlright

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"The truth of the matter is ... somebody is going to die here in the NFL. It's going to happen.''

-- Cincinnati's Carson Palmer, in my quarterback roundtable discussion this week in Sports Illustrated.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/09/06/mmqb/3.html

Read the article for the mentions of the Richardsons and he also does a final blurb on every team post cuts, but that quote immediately caught my attention.

Anyway, here you go.

Tweet of the Week

"I'll bet Thanksgiving at the Richardsons is gonna be a blast this year!''

-- jrolson1013, John Olson of the Twin Cities, after Panthers club president Mark Richardson (unexpectedly) and stadium president Jon Richardson (who'd battled cancer and told confidants he'd be leaving soon) resigned from the team last week. Reportedly, the two men were at odds about the future direction of the team.

It's now understood that Jon Richardson was going to be moving on this year, even though it hadn't leaked 'til last Tuesday. But Mark has been one of the two backbones of that team, and the fact that he was leaving shocked even his close associates around the league. I was with Dallas owner Jerry Jones, who is close to the Richardson family, 30 minutes after the news broke, and he was blown away by it.

Two personal points underscore the value Mark Richardson had to football in Charlotte. In 1989, I went on a trip for Sports Illustrated to several cities exploring franchises in the proposed new minor football league run by departed Dallas executive Tex Schramm. In Charlotte, Mark and (Panthers owner) Jerry Richardson met our traveling party, and Jerry went to meet with Schramm at length. Mark took me out for a bite to eat and we ended up shooting pool until the wee hours.

He'd been a defensive end at Clemson -- we talked about him being a teammate of Andy Headen on Tiger bowl teams just seven or eight years earlier -- but now was transitioning to the family business, which he and his dad hoped would be football. They wanted to bring an NFL franchise to Charlotte. Level-headed, very smart, sharp dresser. Four years later, at a suburban hotel in Chicago, the Richardsons were awarded the franchise, and Jerry Richardson and Mark emotionally discussed getting a team for the Carolinas with a few writers.

I just always assumed Jerry would run the team for a generation, then Mark would take over. As one league exec told me the other day, "We all assumed that. No one saw this coming.'' But I also hear inside the Panthers that Mark Richardson had grown full of himself over the years and the father just had enough.

The Panthers have had an awful last eight months, starting with a 33-13 home playoff debacle against Arizona and continuing with Julius Peppers trying to abandon ship for months (that failed; he's back), the family/executive flap and an 0-4 preseason. It won't be easy to turn it around, with games against Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas -- the last two on the road -- to open the season.

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Sam Mills Fan Newbie

Sam Mills Fan

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Looks like he just perused a few beat writer's blogs to me.

But I also hear inside the Panthers that Mark Richardson had grown full of himself over the years and the father just had enough.

That's the first I've heard of that outside of local talk radio callers doing some speculating. This is the first I've heard of the reactions of anyone around the league to the news as well.

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