Earlier this offseason ESPN’s Adam Schefter made headlines when he suggested Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper’s wife preferred C.J. Stroud over Bryce Young heading into the 2023 NFL Draft.
“If you’re the Panthers and you made that trade… and – I like to tease the owner – his wife was a big C.J. Stroud person. She likes C.J. Stroud,” Schefter said at the time.
The Panthers clearly didn’t listen to her preference and ended up drafting Young instead. Fast forward a year and a video on social media showed just how involved Nicole Tepper, who serves as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Panthers, was in the draft this year.
When talking to another person off camera, Nicole revealed one of the conversations she had with her husband. “He’s like, ‘would you trade up for…?” before the person off camera interrupted.
“…For the guy that I like I said, ‘Yeah,'” she said.
Canales reaction LMFAO pic.twitter.com/dp9U57ewML
— 𝐪𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 🐾 (@qanthers) July 2, 2024
It’s unclear who she was talking about, but fans didn’t care – they’re all too mad she was in the war room in the first place.
“Wait. I’m sorry. Why is the owners wife in the Panthers draft day war room???” one person said.
“Panthers are gonna be bad for so so long. Very funny all the analytics guys thought Tepper would be a great owner because of his hedge fund and now he has his wife helping making draft decisions,” offered another.
Perhaps if the team listened to her about C.J. Stroud things might be a bit different.
Related: Wife Of Panthers Owner David Tepper Reportedly Preferred C.J. Stroud