Mr. Scot

Reading that really stings

I never really had a problem with it honestly, but I know some folks did.

And hell, I didn't even touch on the whole ass backwards process of hiring a head coach then picking a GM. That was equally as goofy as anything else Tepper's done. Probably should have included that in the original post.

For a short time, at least. Tepper is acknowledged as the guy who suggested they switch to a 3-4 defense. In reality, they kind of switched. They built a roster populated with 3-4 type guys on the defensive side, but when the games were played, they didn't really use the alignment all that much. The biggest deal with Rivera though is that Marty Hurney should have been the guy fired first. Rivera had produced better results with a different GM. I'll always wonder how things could have been different if we'd gone that route instead.

I kinda doubt it was without headphones. I get that there are malcontents like Antonio Brown, but when you start getting multiple reports like this (and there were more) it's highly unlikely that every single one of them came from a bad guy.

That's the kind of excuse people like Harbaugh and Gruden use. It's always the players being weak, not them being overbearing. Seriously though, what the hell point is there to not allowing guys to listen to music or play cards on a damn plane flight? A big part of leadership is knowing who you're dealing with, and as an NFL coach you're dealing with grown men, many of whom make a lot more money than you do. And they have alternatives, they don't have to work for you. Tom Coughiln was that way when he first started, but he didn't win a Super Bowl until he finally stopped with the bullsh-t and treated guys like adults. Whether or not Harbaugh has learned that lesson is unknown, but I wouldn't bet on him being a long-term NFL success until he does.

Don't I wish. Monday at the earliest...if it happens at all.

David Tepper could solve the pandemic in a week. It's just that no one's asked him to. David Tepper not only knows what really happened to Elvis; he's actually helping him hide. David Tepper could handle being head coach, GM and in charge of team business operations all at the same time if he wanted to. He just doesn't like showing off. _______________________________ Silly, right? Yet back during prior conversations, plenty of people talked about David Tepper as if he was some kind of mafia godfather / secret master manipulator who could do and get anything he wanted. It reminded me of Chuck Norris Facts, but with a football spin. Deshaun Watson? Tepper will not only make sure we get him, but he'll see to it that all those crazy charges are dropped and he's not only exonerated but deemed a national hero. Left tackle? No problem. Tepper wont be satisfied unless and until we get the best one on the NFL, probably on a cheap contract too. Referees making bad calls against the Panthers? Not on Tepper's watch. He won't allow the league to pull that kind of bullsh-t on us anymore. Super Bowl? Guaranteed! Tepper can get us there. He won't let anyone or anything, including the NFL, stand in his way. Yeah...no Four years into his ownership, Tepper's ownership decisions haven't even managed to produce a single winning season, much less the back-to-back winning seasons that Panther fans have been pining for over the past twenty-plus years. What he has done is continually put his faith in the wrong people. First it was Ron Rivera, then Marty Hurney and now Matt Rhule who Hurney hired and who Tepper gave the keys to the whole damn operation. Oy The hope when Tepper took over from Jerry Richardson was that his time with the Steelers had shown him how to properly run a football operation. You'd think surely he had to have learned something from his nine years as part of arguably the most successful organization in the league. I mean, Richardson may have wanted to emulate the Steelers, but here was a guy who was actually part of the Steelers and knew their methods. Except he didn't... We were hoping for Art Rooney. Instead we got Jim Haslam. And hell, even Haslam is doing better as an owner than Tepper right now. "Well okay It's bad so far" you say, "but surely he's learning, right? There has to be hope for the future, doesn't there?" I'd love to say yes, but the truth is I don't know. The inability to distinguish who you should and shouldn't trust is a fatal flaw for an NFL owner. Throw in that Tepper has shown a tendency to want to do things differently than they're typically done just so he can show how smart he (allegedly) is. Then add a seemingly total lack of self-awareness concerning these things, and it all tallys up to a formula for utter disaster. But if there is hope, it might come from an old friend...or some new ones. Kevin Colbert is a name that has come up here a lot in the past. There have been indications for a while now that he might be set to part ways with the Steelers, and this year that seems more likely than ever. At age 65, Colbert might be a little old to fully run the team like he did in Pittsburgh, and heaven knows he's got nothing left to prove. That said, he absolutely could serve as a short term consultant to help set the Panthers team operations up correctly so that we could move on to better things from here. Barring that, the very least Tepper could do would be to fire Matt Rhule, then step back and let true football guys like Scott Fitterer and Dan Morgan pick the next head coach. I know someone's going to say that an NFL owner isn't going to stay out of such a decision. My point though isn't that he will, but that he should. In fact, if he's truly as smart as he thinks he is and he genuinely wants the football team he owns to be a bona fide success rather than just a fun hobby, it's crucial that he does. Of course, whether or not he's really all that smart is kind of the operative question right now, isn't it?

That's pretty much how I see it going. Like Gruden in Tampa, early success followed by an alarmingly quick slide into mediocrity and player dissatisfaction. Difference being that Gruden never tried to look for greener pastures. Reports from San Francisco indicated that Harbaugh did, and he found them. The whole macho / hardass / always intense / never satisfied persona can work when you're recycling players every three to four years like you do at the college level, but at the pro level it won't take long before you're gonna lose your players.

From a 2014 NFL.com story about player dissatisfaction in San Francisco... NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport told NFL GameDay Morning on Sunday that 49ers players continue to have issues with coach Jim Harbaugh. Heading into San Francisco's critical Week 4 meeting with the Philadelphia Eagles, "the voices are getting louder and louder" on the heels of Rapoport reporting earlier this month that "there is some serious doubt about whether Harbaugh is actually all in like he professes." "The same thing I was hearing last year is the same thing I was hearing as the season was starting -- the same thing I'm hearing now," Rapoport told NFL Media's Rich Eisen. "And some of it is from losing, but I'm told especially the veterans are grumbling already about Jim Harbaugh, and the voices are getting louder and louder." Said Rapoport: "Some of the complaints include the fact that he kind of treats them like children. In fact, on planes, I'm told, they're not allowed to play music, they're not allowed to play cards. Small things, but these are the things that really can rankle players, even though the veterans do get to sit in first class." Before San Francisco's regular-season opener, Rapoport noted that Harbaugh -- aware of the locker-room grumbling -- had attempted to appeal to his players before their win over the Cowboys. Since that victory, though, the Niners have dropped two straight in ugly fashion to the Bears and Cardinals, leaving the team tied with the Rams in the basement of the NFC West. More grumbling from Niners veterans about Jim Harbaugh There were other stories like this around the same time. It reminds me a lot of Jon Gruden's later days in Tampa. Gruden ended up losing the Bucs job because players went to ownership saying they refused to play for him. There were indications that something similar might have wound up happening to Harbaugh in San Francisco had he kept going there. Guys like Harbaugh and Gruden tend to see themselves as hardass coaches, and when players complain they treat it like a badge of honor. The "angry about everything all the time" persona gets old when you're coaching adults though. You can get away with stuff like that at the college level where you're basically king of everything. At the pro level? Not so much.

Someone will be along shortly to tell you that David Tepper is the smartest man in existence. Had he been put in charge of solving the pandemic, we'd all be happily frolicking outside in springtime conditions despite it being winter.

We made fun of Nick Siriani for using "rock paper scissors" to test how competitive players were. We rolled our eyes at Campbell for his "kneecap biting" speech. Both of them now look like they have a good chance to be more successful than Matt Rhule.

When Ron Rivera talked about trying to help players get the storybook ending they deserved, we all mocked him for it. And correctly so. I don't give a flying sh-t about that sort of thing. It's a football team, not a soap opera. You make football decisions for football reasons only or you're doing it wrong. As to next season, all indications right now are that Matt Rhule is still going to be in charge. Does playing out his final season under this clown show really sound like "exiting with the dignity his status deserves" to you? Bottom Line: What I expect next season is both an awful lot of losing, and a lot of awful losing. I don't know what quarterback is going to be doing it. At the moment, I don't honestly care because it's going to be a colossal sh-t show regardless. NFL history is full of great players that didn't have happy endings. Very very few guys go out on top or get victory laps. That's just reality. Newton likely won't be an exception. To tell the truth, if your honest desire is that Newton gets to end his career with some kind of fanfare, what you really should be hoping for is that he sign somewhere else... ...cuz that ain't happnin' in the midst of this circus.

Calling him a college coach isn't exactly accurate, but it kinda is. Harbaugh's personality is waaaayyy better suited to coaching college kids than it is grown men. There was word of grumbling and dissension starting to percolate in the San Francisco locker room before he was fired.

Announcement date actually made me think Washington Groundhogs.

Actually... don't.

Where in that back and forth do you see me mention Darnold?

Best of luck with those stalking charges

Mayfield has been known to openly criticize his coaches. ... Sure, get him

Couple more...

The biggest lesson to learn from the Brady hiring and firing is that experience matters. I know NFL teams are crazy to find the next Sean McVay but they'd be smarter to try and find the next Frank Reich.

Awful enough that Scott Fowler has to appeal to subscribers by explaining that The Observer covers other things besides the Panthers Sadly, the person complaining does have a point.

That'd make for a hell of an awkward dynamic in the coaching room and on the sidelines.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Tomlin. I don't really think anybody should deny that. And the suggestion that he might have somewhat underachieved with the roster talent he's been given is worth discussing. All that said, if the question is who has the better football mind between he and David Tepper, obviously it's Tomlin.