Behind the scenes of the coaching search

[Mr. Scot]

Related to the initial search...

"Substantial"

[Luciu5]

7 minutes ago, bythenbrs said:

I pie a lot.  Am I a bad person?

I do too for the most part. I don't post much but I read pretty much everything. I like the insight and I make fun of people in my head for their dumbass takes. Anyway, Scot doesn't pie apparently (weirdo) so thought I'd throw that out there. I figure he'd appreciate randos pay attention to him.

[NanuqoftheNorth]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Related to the initial search...

"Substantial"

Yeah, I'd have to guess that the hottest coordinators on both sides of the ball are being offered substantially more lucrative contracts than even coordinators from last year.  Especially now that wealthy owners like Tepper are coming to value actual NFL knowledge and experience over used car salesmen w/awesome meatballs.

[Mr. Scot]

2 minutes ago, NanuqoftheNorth said:

 used car salesmen w/awesome meatballs

If the mods ever decide to filter Matt Rhule like they did Timmy from Florida, this is the filter I'd recommend.

[RenoCarolina]

Great reads that went into detail.  Yet neither included the Nicole Tepper lack of training gaff.  Couldn't that have cost the Panthers a great deal?  Could it still cost?  Tells you how close these sources were to Tepper Enterprises that everything about the process came out "except" that detail.

[Jon Snow]

16 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Related to the initial search...

"Substantial"

Head coach money.

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, RenoCarolina said:

Great reads that went into detail.  Yet neither included the Nicole Tepper lack of training gaff.  Couldn't that have cost the Panthers a great deal?  Could it still cost?  Tells you how close these sources were to Tepper Enterprises that everything about the process came out "except" that detail.

Person's article actually did mention that. I just didn't include it in the excerpts.

[Jon Snow]

Just now, RenoCarolina said:

Great reads that went into detail.  Yet neither included the Nicole Tepper lack of training gaff.  Couldn't that have cost the Panthers a great deal?  Could it still cost?  Tells you how close these sources were to Tepper Enterprises that everything about the process came out "except" that detail.

It came out. It was in one of those breakdowns somewhere.  It took less than an hour to complete and didn't change anything. 

[bythenbrs]

1 minute ago, RenoCarolina said:

Great reads that went into detail.  Yet neither included the Nicole Tepper lack of training gaff.  Couldn't that have cost the Panthers a great deal?  Could it still cost?  Tells you how close these sources were to Tepper Enterprises that everything about the process came out "except" that detail.

Something that was quickly remedied in an hour online?  They publicly slapped the wrist and that is probably that.  “Bad dog. Very bad.”

[ladypanther]

 

4 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Related to the initial search...

"Substantial"

Knew that had to be in the mix.

[Sgt Schultz]

5 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

FYI @Jon Snow, Breer did catch his mistake.

I guess he picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

[Basbear]

7 hours ago, bythenbrs said:

I pie a lot.  Am I a bad person?

 

7 hours ago, Luciu5 said:

I do too for the most part. I don't post much but I read pretty much everything. I like the insight and I make fun of people in my head for their dumbass takes. Anyway, Scot doesn't pie apparently (weirdo) so thought I'd throw that out there. I figure he'd appreciate randos pay attention to him.

Its not my thing, but in traveling allll parts you learn or should learn the old " When in rome do as romans do". Also not my job/role to tell others how to act, so......

 

In another thread, im trying to figure out this scot anti-reward deal if @Panthro can help...

Edited February 7, 2023 by Basbear

[TheSpecialJuan]

9 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Albert Breer tells the story from his perspective...

If you want to know why the Panthers hired Frank Reich, you can actually go back to the fourth-and-3 that the Eagles converted early in the NFC title game. On the play, from the Niners’ 35, you’ll remember Philly held nothing back—Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts ended up escaping to his left, and launching the ball against his body to an open DeVonta Smith inside the 10. The ball was in range, Smith’s effort was spectacular and the chains moved.

Whether Smith actually caught it is immaterial to this discussion.

What matters, in this case, is that Philly took that chance, something that illustrated the advantage that the Panthers thought hiring an offensive coach would give them. Where a defensive coach, in that spot, might throw at the sticks, or run a draw, or punt, Carolina saw an offensive coach more willing to take the sort of chance Nick Sirianni and Shane Steichen did, for a variety of reasons, and make Philly tougher to defend and more likely to convert.

Reich, by the way, is Sirianni’s mentor. And Reich actually wasn’t even part of the Panthers’ initial group of candidates. But when it came down to it, the Carolina brass leaned on what they learned from 12 games with Steve Wilks as interim coach, and tacked on that feeling they had all along—that they wanted a guy with an offensive background, and Reich is where they landed.

Here’s a snapshot look at how they got there …

• Through the fall, owner David Tepper’s research, as we’ve written in this space, focused largely on innovative offensive minds in general and young ones in particular. With 12 weeks of runway, the Panthers’ first list was short, and that was by design, with five names on there—former Lions and former Colts coach Jim Caldwell, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Giants OC Mike Kafka, Eagles OC Shane Steichen and the incumbent Wilks.

• Wilks had at least made the Panthers think about pivoting, and the biggest reason why was because of how he’d been able to capture the locker room in an adverse situation and turn the ship by creating a very real identity. The biggest question coming out of that related to the sort of staff he’d be able to assemble. My understanding is Eagles QBs coach Brian Johnson was part of Wilks’s preferred group as offensive coordinator.

• So Reich wasn’t on that first list. But there was a television report late in the season that he’d be considered for the Panthers job, which caused Carolina to double back on the work it had done on the former Colts coach, whom the search committee liked. GM Scott Fitterer pulled on his connections to Indy’s front office, including ties to GM Chris Ballard and assistant GM Ed Dodds (his former Seattle coworker), and those guys told him, “No, you gotta talk to him. He’s a legit guy.” At that point, the Panthers’ thinking basically was, Why wouldn’t we talk to him?

• Because of the rules regarding coaches in the playoffs, Reich wound up being the third coach the Panthers talked to. And the command, presence and maturity both he and Caldwell showed in the process pushed the Panthers back to what they’d learned with Wilks as their interim coach—and it made some of the younger coaches seem green.

• Through the first round of interviews, which, again, was intentionally small, Tepper—still relatively new as an owner, and having run a truncated process that became a pursuit of then Baylor coach Matt Rhule on his first swing—noticed something. He was learning a lot about his own organization, and other organizations, through a grueling first round. So he decided to open it up to some new names and brought in Sean Payton with a second group, including Broncos defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, Bills OC Ken Dorsey and Cowboys OC Kellen Moore.

• Moore made an impression at the wire, in part because he had to wait for Dallas’s season to end to interview. The Panthers offered to do it with him over Zoom after the Niners eliminated the Cowboys on Jan. 22, but Moore said he really wanted to come in. So that Tuesday, Carolina squeezed him in for an interview from 9 to 11 a.m., so Tepper and his wife would be done in time to prepare for the memorial service for Charlotte FC defender Anton Walkes (who’d died suddenly days earlier) that afternoon.

• Moore really impressed the Panthers. They had some of the same concerns with him they’d had with the other young offensive coaches, but they’d seen and heard enough to want to bring him back. So they called Moore, who was in a car on the way to the airport, and asked him to come back Jan. 25 to continue the conversation.

• At that point, Wilks had already had his second interview. Reich came in for his after the continuation of the Moore interview on the afternoon of Jan. 25. Where the first round included Tepper and wife, Nicole; Fitterer, assistant GM Dan Morgan; and lead negotiator Samir Suleiman, the second round looped in team president Kristi Coleman. And it turns out Coleman’s presence in the interview helped separate Reich from the pack—his big-picture vision for the football operation (everything from his coaching staff to player engagement to how the equipment room would work) impressed her, as it had the rest.

• Tepper, as he had after the first round of interviews, asked everyone to rank their top five candidates, abstaining from the vote (so as not to influence anything). Reich was first on everyone’s list. From Nos. 2 to 4, the lists varied, making Reich a pretty clear-cut choice—and leading to Reich’s hire, made official Jan. 26.

So the Panthers have a new coach, Reich has a second shot, and, it seems, Tepper feels like his organization, and everyone in it, is better for having gone through the process.

 

[onmyown]

This is Tepper’s toy. He’s ‘learning’ what others already know because he surrounds himself with people who have zero experience in hiring a HC except Hurney but he never should kept on. 

A vote from Fitt, Morgan, his wife, and team president? Eh, they may do well at respective jobs but that’s really strange way to hire a HC.

I really wish he’d try and learn from better sources…Rhule, Hurney, Fitt…these bad people to learn from.

But it’s pretty obvious Tepper wants so bad to figure this toy out on his own and take credit, just sucks as fans be dragged through it. Even JR had more football sense and he hired help.

Edited February 7, 2023 by onmyown