Albert Breer on Reich's dismissal and what it's like to work for David Tepper

[Mr. Scot]

This might be one of the more definitive articles I've seen...

Excerpts:

“His thing is, the minute it gets bad, it’s going to get worse, so we better try something else,” says one former Panthers staffer. “He’s a hedge fund guy; that’s what hedge fund guys do. The second something stops earning money, they take their money out of it, take the profit and move on to something else.”

“He doesn’t care about the money,” says a former Panthers coach. “He looks at it like a stock—you make a poor investment, there’s a sunk cost, boom, you move on.”

...

And that sounds good on paper. The problem is, in pro football, if you keep churning through coaches and scouts and philosophies, you wind up with collections of talent that go together like scrambled eggs and ice cream.

So it is that there’s a positionless defensive player, in Jeremy Chinn, drafted to play for Matt Rhule, who was excellent early in his career then fell into disuse simply because he didn’t fit new defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero’s defense the way he did Phil Snow’s. So it is that the left tackle Ickey Ekwonu, who played great as a rookie, had some of his physical limitations (namely, his length) show up this year in a way they didn’t last year. So it is that another lineman, Bradley Bozeman, has seen a similar fate after the staff changes.

The blood from those messes is, very much, on Tepper’s hands. He’s the one who picked the coaches, who chose to move on from them and who signs everyone’s checks.

...

One example came with how Reich’s staff was assembled. Tepper felt like Rhule hired too many assistants who weren’t ready for their roles. He told people, after firing Rhule, that no Fortune 500 company would just hire one guy, then let that guy hire everyone else. He asked why it was like that in pro football. He also liked how the Giants went outside Brian Daboll’s tree to assemble a staff and how the 49ers capitalized on the NFL’s incentive system for having diverse coaches and scouts hired away.

So Reich was hired, and then a well-intentioned Tepper called for Reich to bring together a diverse all-star staff, with depth and experience within it. And it’s true that Reich hired a lot of good coaches. But they were coaches from different places, with different ideas, and it was always going to take time for that to mesh. The problem Reich had was the offense was lagging behind the other units, and there wasn’t enough adjusting or evolving, and all that was affecting the development of the quarterback.

...

And if there’s one other problem, according to those there, it’d be that Tepper does have his hands in everything, which is an issue because he’s not in the building daily. He’ll be around Friday through Tuesday or so of a game weekend and for the road trips, but he still lacks the day-to-day context needed to be that hands-on as an owner.

...

Highly recommend reading the full text. It's extremely informative.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Mr. Scot

[SaltAndPepper]

The Process Oriented part vs Results oriented part has to be a hard adjustment. Give him credit, he's trying. It's just... man he's wasting a decade of our lives to get this right...

[Panthercougar68]

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, Panthercougar68 said:

Guy from the 33rd Team commented on that same thing not long ago.

He mentioned that with the next hire, York first Lynch and Shanahan six year guaranteed contracts, then promised to be completely hands off and let them do what they needed to do.

General consensus is that's exactly what Tepper should do at this point as well.

The question is whether he will. And as Pat McAfee mentioned, you still gotta hire the right people.

I desperately hope that he brings in someone like Kevin Colbert to help. Otherwise I don't have a whole lot of confidence in that last part

[Waldo]

But he said he is patient...

Good article, got a little hopeful at the end. He doesn't force stuff but he hovers and is involved. Same difference is the saying I believe. Doesn't understand football but he gets analytics so he understands bad pivotal calls which is how he is owner-ing. Sounds like Scott is safe as long as he remains football clueless. 

He should hire a consultant and take up another hobby. He has really built something terrible in Charlotte. It could take him a really long time to put something together that isn't complete failure. Nothing about Tepper sounds hands off so I don't know how you get to there but endless failure until he gives it a real shot. 

 

[Panthercougar68]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Guy from the 33rd Team commented on that same thing not long ago.

He mentioned that with the next hire, York first Lynch and Shanahan six year guaranteed contracts, then promised to be completely hands off and let them do what they needed to do.

General consensus is that's exactly what Tepper should do at this point as well.

The question is whether he will. And as Pat McAfee mentioned, you still gotta hire the right people.

I desperately hope that he brings in someone like Kevin Colbert to help. Otherwise I don't have a whole lot of confidence in that last part

I’m of the opinion that as bleak as things are, this is called the not for long league for a reason.

[UNCrules2187]

I can 100% see why simple game management issues would drive Tepper up a wall. Hell, it drove us fans up a wall seeing Reich waste a timeout then trot Pinero out for a 59 yard FG in Chicago and call those stupid ass timeouts deep in his own territory vs. the Titans. 

It seemed clear as day that Reich was not the right man to lead this team from a schematic and game management perspective. He was going to be fired at year-end anyway, and while I understand folks being up in arms about him only getting 11 games, it really did feel like he was actively destroying our rookie #1 overall pick QB's confidence by shoehorning him into a scheme to which he clearly isn't suited. That combined with the horrendous gameday management issues I think fully justified pulling the rip cord on the Reich regime early.

Now as he said in his presser, the buck stops with him and he made the decision in the first place to hire Reich. So at the end of the day, whether it's Ben Johnson, Jim Harbaugh, Ejiro Evero, or someone else, it doesn't matter whether it's Tepper, a consultant, or a search firm that comes up with the ultimate name, it's GOT to be the right hire.

[Ricky Spanish]

An SI article?

Hmmm can't trust this, it may be AI...

[Mr. Scot]

23 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

An SI article?

Hmmm can't trust this, it may be AI...

In these case, it's AB.

Still can't believe they did that though

[ForJimmy]

So we should have kept Ron, Rhule, or Reich?  It's clear none of these are the right guys as the teams regressed and some of them lost the locker room.  The firing isn't an issue to me.  The hiring and over eagerness of trying to find a QB are the problems.  This is why the roster is in shambles IMO.  

[hepcat]

They should have just hired Steve Wilks for a couple seasons to build up the depth and develop some players, then go get the big up and coming coach after a few mediocre flirting with the playoffs seasons to get over the hump. Better than the dogshit we see every Sunday 

[DFive]

Very good article from one of the better NFL Insiders out there. Particularly love the comment from a former staffer that says Tepper doesn't care about money. Aside from the Broncos ownership, Tepper is the SINGLE richest owner in the NFL and because of this he can throw money at anyone or anything. This gives us a huge advantage over other franchises that could not absorb the cost of canning coaches like we have done. Also, if you read the article you'll see that all the former staffers and coaches that were interviewed all had positive things to say about Tepper and how his desire to win is paramount. While it hasn't bore fruit like he, and we all, had hoped, I'm glad he keeps swinging. Do you remember how many times we wished Jerry would swing for the fences on free agents or upgrading our stadium and facilities? Tepper has put his money where his mouth is and will continue to do so. But he, like Bryce Young, is still a rookie and will need to go through his own growing pains. Look at Bills when they got new ownership. They were awful but eventually she got it right and now they're a perennial playoff team. We will get there, too, and Bryce will be a huge part of that. He just needs the pieces and coaching around him, and Tepper is going to throw money until this happens.

[Mr. Scot]

1 hour ago, ForJimmy said:

So we should have kept Ron, Rhule, or Reich?  It's clear none of these are the right guys as the teams regressed and some of them lost the locker room.  The firing isn't an issue to me.  The hiring and over eagerness of trying to find a QB are the problems.  This is why the roster is in shambles IMO.  

Not at all what he's saying.

That you can't run a football team like a hedge fund though is correct.

[ForJimmy]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Not at all what he's saying.

That you can't run a football team like a hedge fund though is correct.

If it’s pretty certain you have the wrong guy it’s better just to move on. Now he needs to look in the mirror about his involvement, the roster and his hiring process which is also responsible for all these coaching changes.