What is Mike Florio’s (PFT) reasoning for posting endless articles about David Tepper and our organization? He has been pushing the Stroud was Reich’s choice narrative for weeks and how none of this is Reich’s fault. Does he have some sort of history with Reich or is he just capitalizing on clicks?
Note: I am not a Tepper supporter, but firing Reich was the right move.
I don’t like Florio but I find it eminently believable that the owner held an outsized amount of influence on who went 1.1, directly or indirectly. This fanbase often struggles with the concept of “two things can be true.”
Forget where I read it (last few days have been a whirlwind of nationally covered Panthers stories, which is…not the norm) but someone somewhere made a pretty decent point on Bryce being the “unanimous” pick as MR TEPPER claimed in his presser. If you’re BuckFitty, Morgan, Reich, anyone on the scouting staff, etc., you are not going to voice a dissenting opinion in the war room that Stroud (or AR, or whoever) is the pick when ol’ Brass Balls already made his opinion clear. Same as the Jones failsons and their reports don’t speak up over Jerruh. You don’t have to issue a mandate to influence opinion when you’re the owner.
Think about it this way. What are the odds that among the GM, assistant GM, coaching staff, college scouts, etc, it was truly unanimous that Bryce was the pick? I mean, there were still conflicting reports on who was going to go right up until draft night – obviously some of that was smoke, but when you have 1.1 and aren’t looking to trade, what’s the need for smoke? I find it pretty intellectually dishonest to think that an entire NFL FO came to the exact same opinion on a group of non-generational QB prospects. Not one Stroud or AR vote in the room? Or a Will Anderson/Jalen Carter guy to mix things up? I find that pretty hard to believe tbh.
Cue the downvotes in 3, 2, 1…