It truly blows my mind how many are coming to Reich’s defense claiming Tepper is the problem and not holding him accountable for the coaching job he did.
Tepper should be held accountable for hiring Reich in the first place, but the narrative shaping is Reich was put in an impossible position to succeed. The Panthers were wildly praised for the coaching staff they assembled, and while not many were predicting playoffs, I didn’t see many in the media predicting THIS.
It was Reich’s decision to assemble this staff, it was he who handled play calling for the majority of the games and ultimately it was on him to establish an identity/culture for the organization. What we got was an uninspired product with no culture or identity.
EVEN if Stroud was Reich’s preferred choice, do we seriously think that the Panthers would be a significantly better team? Reich implemented one of the worst offensive schemes in modern day football. He had a blueprint of what this OL did well from a year ago and completely shifted the approach.
On top of that, if you have limited skill talent you need to be creative with your play designs and scheme receivers open. Very little motion or creativity existed in this offense and instead he continuously relied on a shotgun, drop back passing attack and asked receivers to win 1 on 1 matchups, which they clearly can’t do.
The primary tenet of a coach is to get the most out of his players and put them in the best position to succeed. Frank did not do that. I’m convinced with a better scheme and coaching the personnel would not look this bad.
There are definitely roster flaws that a coach can’t overcome this year, but that is no excuse for how putrid the offense has looked. Look at what Evero has done with the defense despite a boatload of injuries.
If Frank had this team even at 3-8 and the offense looked functional at times and he was fired I could get behind the outrage, but it’s absurd to come to the conclusion this was the wrong move by Tepper with the coaching performance we’ve witnessed.
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Reich is a nice guy, took full ownership of the situation.
Probably due to multiple reasons, one being Frank is a well liked guy and thats how the media works. If they like you, they polish your apple. If they dont like you, they wont vote you into the Hall of Fame no matter how many homers you had.
Pat McCaffey was the one person who seemed to get it. Oddly enough, someone who was super close to the situation in Indy and someone who knew Reich quite well.
I think people like him, and they also want to solidify the idea that the Panthers are a complete mess, because it’s always a fun story to have the drama of it. We are already a laughing stock, so that means that the natural reaction is to assume we did something insane.
Also set aside everything else for a moment and focus on the clock management for at least 4 separate games and then tell me he got the short end of a deal.
I’m sorry, but you don’t get to keep all 3 timeouts with a minute left in the half of a game you’re losing with no chances of the playoffs and then of all things, take a knee to end the half.
This happened in at least 2 games and he’s failed to call critical timeouts many more times.
He just isn’t a good coach and can’t handle the speed of today’s game. I don’t even need to see the product on the field to say that, I only need to look at clock history.