Selling the job

[philw5289]

A lot of people getting their hopes up for a Ben Johnson or Bobby Slowik hire but no chance that happens especially after those teams won this weekend. I think Evero is the backup plan because why else would Tepper deny interviews. A new coach would want his own DC. It’s going to be a David Culley type of year. Evero, Frazier Tabor probably. Maybe new QB after this upcoming season then our coaching job will be more attractive when the new coach can draft a new QB.  

[Gapanthersfan]

How about letting a prospective coach know he won’t be fired after a year in trying to work through this abject cluster. 

How about not repeating the same mistake again. How about a year of leaving everything the hell alone. 

Listen y’all, next season is a wrap. Stop with trying to buy another car polish. This hooptie ain’t winning anything any time soon. Tepper isn’t letting Bryce go without at least 1 more season. Why put a new coach on the hot seat in a sure lose situation the moment he signs his contract. 

We are either going to lose with our current bad coaching staff, or we are going to lose with a new coach we had to buy, simply because the roster sucks, Bryce sucks and Tepper sucks. 

Stick with the current staff, wait out our draft purgatory, Bryce gets 1 more losing year then retires, sign Brown and Luvu, show some continued improvement on defense. 

With Bryce out, promising defense and a full draft to work with, the job becomes immensely more attractive and may lure a better head coach. 

 

[PNW_PantherMan]

I think the best selling point of the job is it’s several years pay for 10 games of work.

[onmyown]

I’d imagine people talk in the NFL. People know what’s going on here and it’s bad. Coaches and players (Stafford) were already declining coming here. That was before this season.

Money is the only, single selling point.

We will not be getting a top candidate, time to accept that now.

 

Edited January 15 by onmyown

[ThPantherFan]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

These are my thoughts.

I never looked at it that way.  Makes a lot of sense.  I appreciate that post.

[ThPantherFan]

2 hours ago, Waldo said:

There are zero signs Tepper is going hands off enough to succeed.

I hate to say it but that is probably going to be the case.

[ThPantherFan]

2 hours ago, Davidson Deac II said:

How I would sell it is this.

The perspective coach has one year to judge whether Bryce can be an effective NFL qb.  If he can, then great.  If not, then the new coach is very likely to have a high draft pick to grab someone new.  

Not a bad idea.

[UnluckyforSome]

They have to be sold on the potential of the team, because honestly there is really nothing there to point to as being attractive.

The defense is middle of the pack, with lots of impending and current questions. There are some holes to fill and tough decisions to make on that side.

The offense has no standout players aside from a aging wr and a rb that was not intended to be the starter. The other key positions are unproven at best, or are clearly in need of an upgrade.

So, the job needs to be pitched as the opportunity to rebuild the team, from roster, to front office, to culture. That would be how you sell it, the appeal is the challenge. 

[SuperBowlBound]

The only way to sell this job is to offer the Shanahan/Lynch type package. This isn't going to get fixed in a year. If Wild Card weekend did anything - I think it really reinforced just how horrific the Panthers front office was at personnel evaluation.

The 2023 draft alone offered talent all over the board. Green Bay got freaking Musgrave, Reed, Kraft & Wicks all after Mingo was taken. Then throw in what the Rams did, Byron Young/Kobie Turner in round 3 (DJ Johnson taken in between them) - and then Puca at the end of round 5.

The gross mismanagement of draft capital from this organization since 2019 is appalling. No organization has done worse in the draft than the Panthers have since 2019 and I don't think it's debatable. 

Five years of huge whiffs catches up to you and now the deck is stacked that much more against you after Tepper engineered what looks to be the second coming of the Herschel Walker deal.

If I'm a head coach/GM - I demand in writing that Tepper steers clear of any/all personnel decisions. I'd also stipulate that Dan Morgan/Samir Suleiman cannot stick around. I'd automatically say no if Tepper says I'd have to keep one or both.

[Evil Hurney]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

In a lot of ways, our current head coaching interview process feels reversed. We're trying to convince somebody to come take the job because it doesn't exactly sell itself.

So how do you do that?

The most obvious selling points are big money and control, but what team with an opening doesn't offer those things? Might Tepper pay a few million more than another guy? Sure, but at the NFL level of competition, that doesn't really guarantee anything.

What, then, are the other selling points you use to try and convince someone to throw their future into the Panthers?

...

Commitment to total no ownership interference absolutely must be one of them, of course. That's non-negotiable.

Here's one that I doubt everyone would agree on, though...

You gotta sell Bryce Young as a current positive.

It's likely impossible to pretend Young isn't the team's commitment right now, so don't try.

Let the candidates talk to Young and see whether they click with him.

If they don't, then c'est la vie, but the reality is you can't trick somebody into taking a job and then expect them to be passionate about doing it.

So don't try...

These are my thoughts. I'm interested in hearing what others have. And yeah, I know there are some who will say there's not a single thing we can offer.

But I gotta ask

• Package deal with the GM of your choosing (GM still retains roster control, I don't see Tepper giving up Matt Rhule-type control again for a first-time HC)
• Contractual guarantees that incentivize multiple seasons; I'm thinking of some type of poison pill in the contract that would make being fired after one year for anything performance-related really expensive.
• A low-cost QB that is good enough to manage a game and is under team control for a while; enabling you and your GM to build up the rest of the roster.
• Obviously, money and resources beyond the scope of most other teams in the league.
• A (very) low bar to clear for deemed "success". Winning say 9 games in a season would make you a savior.

[KSpan]

While Tepper is still an idiot until he shows he's not, IMO folks are making too big of a deal about the tenure length. Rhule's teams showed no improvements across 2+ years, and Tepper should have fired him after 2021 anyway (ignoring that he never should have bene hired int he first place); this year's team was absolutley inept and also showed zero improvement from week to week, both interms of players and strategy. It's not difficult to explain that improvement on the field buys time, even if it takes  abit for the wins to come through. Dan Campbell in 2021 is the exact example of this - that team won very few games, but they showed steady improvement throughout the season and a drive to compete. Carolina has a massively deep hole to climb out of and one season may not be enough for a big change in the W/L column. 

While I was always against the Reich hire, this was the same barometer for him. There was likely much more behind the scenes that we aren't aware of, particularly regarding handling of Bryce, but it was ovious that the team was not growing at all. Talking heads like to make a big deal out of it but NFL coaches see all that and a frank conversation with Tepper can explain exactly what the issues were that led to Reich being let go, just like any other job on the planet.

In the end it will come down to if Tepper has actually learned anything and if candidates actually believe him if he say he has. In generla though this particular aspect of the process is probably the easiest one. 

Edited January 15 by KSpan

[CRA]

4 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

The most obvious selling points are big money and control, but what team with an opening doesn't offer those things?

Argument is there we are just offering money though.  Not control.  

Frank didn’t have control 

not a given the next guy will either.  With that big paycheck likely could come staff and players and a direction he really doesn’t want 

[Mr. Scot]

14 minutes ago, CRA said:

Argument is there we are just offering money though.  Not control.  

Frank didn’t have control 

not a given the next guy will either.  With that big paycheck likely could come staff and players and a direction he really doesn’t want 

Without an offer of non-interference, I'm not sure how good a candidate we're going to get.

Even if we do get a good coach, Tepper continuing to interfere may well sabotage him.

[BrianS]

3 hours ago, Gapanthersfan said:

How about letting a prospective coach know he won’t be fired after a year in trying to work through this abject cluster. 

 

I don't disagree with this, but that's what four and seven year contracts are supposed to do.  How has that worked out so far with Tupperware as our owner?

We are in an awful position.  I hope we can get a good coach, but I don't expect it.