Mr. Scot

It's Florio, dude. Sh-t stirring is his business. Hell, he spent years trying to get presumed top picks to sit out their senior seasons. Yet even he only states that it's something they might want to explore. And that there will be emails and documents and such to show internal communication. My guess? He knows this is bullsh-t. But hey, anything for clicks, right?

At a time when we were pursuing Ben Johnson, but we must have...nah, I'm not gonna try.

Yeah, I saw that and was like

Sorry dude, but you're being attacked not for personal reasons, but because this argument is ridiculous. There are enough holes in this theory to make Swiss cheese jealous. Frank Reich didn't conspire with the Panthers. Hell, pretty much everybody who knows Reich would tell you he's one of the most honorable men in the NFL. Reich would never be party to screwing over another coach. And suggesting his daughter's hire was part of some covert plan is just utterly ridiculous. If you're upset about being attacked, drop this silly argument.

But his heart's in Michigan

Yeah, they had a fake report on USA while back.

You're off the deep end with this stuff, dude

To be fair, Denver was confident they were getting Demeco Ryans till recently.

The analogy was pretty accurate with regard to how credible this particular conspiracy theory is. Hell, you've never even answered how all of this stuff with Reich's daughter is supposed to be relevant when Ben Johnson was the target and different members of the search committee had different preferences (including Fitterer backing Wilks). Bottom Line: There's zero credible evidence for any of this, but you're treating it like some established fact that you think the Panthers have to answer for. It's just silly.

You don't get analogies, do you? That said, this theory makes about as much sense.

Is the government not acknowledging that we're being controlled by lizard people evidence that it's true? This is a really stupid discussion about an idiotic conspiracy theory. It doesn't need to be "acknowledged".

Your words... Owners and GMs are naturally conspiratorial. If the address it then great. If they dodge it...then fug em. You want them to "address" a theory that's bullsh-t, and if they don't, then "Ha, it must be true!" That's ridiculous.

Owners and GMs have a pretty broad variety of personalities. The idea that they're all villains from a Saturday morning cartoon is pretty silly. I'd add that if the Panthers "say nothing" it's probably because there's nothing to say. To assume it's because they're hiding something is pure tinfoil hat.

Which, by all accounts, was Ben Johnson...until he backed out.

Rhule didn't want Fields. The general belief is that Fitterer didn't either but It's also possible he just ultimately tagged along because Rhule had final say and was known to just keep badgering people till they "agreed" with whatever he wanted to do. Doubt we'll ever know if Fitterer felt any different but it doesn't really matter now.

Reich's been in the league long enough and worked with enough people that he's got a load of contacts. That was one of his big selling points. Hell, he and Vic Fangio have been friends since 1995.

Do you really wanna try and sell the theory that everybody had agreed on Frank Reich even before Ben Johnson backed out of the running? Scott Fitterer, who supported Wilks? Dan Morgan, who was well acquainted with Ken Dorsey? And David Tepper, who reportedly was high on Ben Johnson and didn't know Frank Reich from Adam? If you can't see just how ridiculously dumb this whole theory sounds, I can't help you. You think the "truth' is coming out in the next couple of weeks? From where? If your answer is via sports talk radio and social media, I've got some bad news for ya. If your answer is from Steve Wilks' attorneys, I've got some even worse news. This is just another stupid conspiracy theory that some people are gonna believe regardless of the facts. There's not gonna be some bombshell report where everybody blows the lid off what really happened because what really happened is likely already known, and not the least bit exciting or conspiratorial. The team chose Reich over Wilks after giving Wilks a fair shot and looking over numerous options. That's it. The shadow conspiracy talk is just silly. Let it go.

Correct. Throw in also that any lawyer would likely tell you it's not necessarily their job to get to the truth. It's their job to win a case.

Yeah, the attorney has an agenda. And I've known enough attorneys to know the vast majority of them are full of sh-t.

Are you going to take a chance on communicating with somebody who might not only turn you down, but then report you for tampering?

The people who were involved in the search process were not all in on Frank Reich. Fitterer supported Wilks. Dan Morgan most likely lobbied for Ken Dorsey. Hell, all the reports early on were that the team wanted Ben Johnson as their top option. So in order to believe all this silliness, you'd have to say that the team hired Hannah Reich knowing Ben Johnson was going to drop out and planning to hire her father as a fallback. The more actual facts you look at, the dumber this theory sounds.

And this is the kind of zero evidence speculation that just makes the discussion all that much dumber.

Not really. She applied before her dad was even fired, went through the interview process and got hired by a manager who's got zero to do with football operations. The conspiracy stuff is stupid. Hell, she's even had to delete her Twitter account now, most likely because ignorant people were giving her sh-t over something she had nothing to do with. That's the kind of dumb crap this sort of bullsh-t produces, and why it's better not to engage in this kind of stupidity.

It wasn't misinformation. Wilks was a viable candidate. Heck, he was reported to have had Scott Fitterer's support for the job.