David Tepper’s reign as owner of the Carolina Panthers has produced three more canned head coaches than it has winning seasons. David Tepper has canned three head coaches.
A day after adding Frank Reich to his graveyard, Tepper held what may be becoming his annual midseason state of the union address this morning. So, as he’s proven to have a pretty itchy trigger finger, does the billionaire owner think future head-coaching candidates will be deterred by his past moves?
He answered that rather simply.
“No,” he replied.
He was then asked why he believes that.
“Again, I’m not gonna get into it here,” he said. “But I think there are different reasons why different things happened in each case. Like I said, everything is out on the field, everything is known over time—and I think people know, the league knows it and people in the league know it,
“If everything was perfect, it wouldn’t be the case. And if everything was good, it wouldn’t be the case. So it’s not as if it’s not known out there. That will be something for people to decide.”
Tepper decided to dismiss Reich after just 11 games, a run that resulted in an NFL-worst 1-10 record. Reich, the very first quarterback in franchise history and a well-respected play-caller, was targeted by Tepper to strike an offensive renaissance in Carolina.
That, obviously, did not happen. Through 12 weeks, the Panthers rank 30th in total offense and 29th in points per game.
Reich’s firing marked Tepper’s third in his six years at the helm, with Ron Rivera being his first victim in 2019 and Matt Rhule his second just last season. Nonetheless, Tepper wanted to make it clear that he’s capable of running a perfectly functioning ship.
“Just generally speaking, and not here and not that this matters ’cause this is here,” he added. “But in other aspects of my life, we have people for 20, 30 years that work for me. Nobody ever leaves me.”