Was Frank Reich the problem?

[TheBigKat]

Some of the most UNINSPIRING football in Panthers history was last year under Frank Reich

this is the first offseason in a long time I can actually be OPTIMISTIC about the direction of the team. 
 

where CJ Stroud had the sophomore slump, Young has the sophomore jump and I think much of this can be attributed to Dave Canales

 

this is the first offseason in a long time I know who’s going to be our coach and QB next season

[Jon Snow]

I think that's been obvious for some time now.

[Mr. Scot]

I don't think so, but there was so much wrong with that whole situation It's pretty tough to figure out.

Tepper has much more of a hand in things than he supposedly has at the moment and the Tepper factor always makes things worse.

Edited January 5, 2025 by Mr. Scot

[Rags]

A large part of it, but we can stop this thing where we try to assign blame to one entity in particular.

Reich was bad, Bryce was bad, Over crowded coaching room was bad, OL was bad, WRs were bad. 

The whole team was bad.  It's in the rear view mirror.  

[Randolph Panther]

I always liked Reich going back to 1995 but he just never seemed to have his heart in it last year. Under different circumstances he might have been better. Really glad to see BY playing well, he is impossible not to like. 

[CRA]

Give Frank Canales’ OL and Frank wins 5 or so games.    Oh, and if Tepper allowed Frank to bench Bryce like Dave was? Might of won 7ish last year with Dalton and that OL

But Frank sucks.  But the above is just what he basically proved he was in the NFL.  People so high of this one random win they are in excusing Dave Tepper level highness 

[jb2288]

As plain as the nose on your face 

[LinvilleGorge]

I mean, we're 5-12. We still have a lot of problems to solve.

But yeah, I think Reich either took this job as a retirement check or he mailed it in when we drafted Bryce. Either way, not a good look on his part.

[The Natural]

The guy showed zero emotion or imagination. I'm of the belief he didn't really care and wanted the easy paycheck before retirement. Matt Rhule wasn't a good coach but I never felt it was from a lack of effort. Maybe the third time was the charm for Tepper.

[Mr. Scot]

9 minutes ago, Rags said:

Teich was bad, Bryce was bad, Over crowded coaching room was bad, OL was bad, WRs were bad.

Owner was bad...

[Carolina Cajun]

Guy wasnt built to run an offense for byrce young.  Need a big qb to stay in the pocket, Bryce however needs a system where they move him out of the pocket, he square pegged a round hole as hard as I've ever seen.  doesnt help that the rest of the personnel was dogshit.  Canales is the guy for the job and hopefully will build a connection with Bryce.

[uncfan888]

Tepper was the problem 

[45catfan]

It took two full seasons for the guy "Frank picked" to have his best game. It was a case of too big of a hill to climb in such a small window. The small window being barely half a season because of Tepper being Tepper.

[outlaw4]

The answer seems obvious that it was mainly on Reich.

But the situation he walked into was unusual. He didn't get the freedom he would've elsewhere, forced to either work with prior regime coaches or bringing in guys that he wasn't as familiar with to put an "all-star" staff together. The whole deal of whether he really wanted Bryce is one of those speculation things we may never get a true answer on since he's not the type of guy to air dirty laundry. Finally, he barely had anything to work with in general, especially the O-line. That interior was such a sieve that it almost didn't matter what we ran. It was going to get busted up.

Regardless, the offensive scheme we ran was flat-out archaic garbage which was supposedly a mix of what Reich and Brown wanted. Who knows? I'm inclined to believe that was more on Reich as I recall Colts fans pointing out similar flaws with what he ran at Indy.

In retrospect, I don't think Reich was going to work out regardless. The impression I get given how tight-lipped everyone is about what happened last season implies thing behind the scenes was not good at all, even toxic. That's the most surprising thing because Reich really isn't the guy to stir up trouble like that.