The Carolina Panthers have chosen one of their former players, Frank Reich, to be their new head coach. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his On My Mind commentary, says we should think a little longer about the coach the Panthers didn’t choose.
Steve Wilks, as interim head coach, led a terrible Carolina Panthers team to a 6-6 record over the last 12 games of the NFL season. This was after the Panthers traded away their best player, Christian McCaffrey. It was during a season the team shuttled between three starting quarterbacks, none of whom inspired fear or even mild discomfort against a good defense. Yet Wilks got the Panthers to within a couple of Tom Brady bombs of making the playoffs.
If they’d gotten in, forget head coach. Somebody would’ve run him for mayor.
But they did not get in, and Steve Wilks is no longer the Panthers’ head coach. Panthers owner David Tepper has chosen Frank Reich, most recently the head coach in Indianapolis, but before that the answer to a trivia question: He was the starting quarterback in the Panthers’ first game, back in 1995. Reich’s career record as a coach is 40-33-1.
The conventional wisdom is that Tepper picked Reich because he’s known for his offensive mind, and the Panthers desperately need an offense that is a little less … offensive. Wilks’ experience is on the defensive side of the ball.
But there’s another difference between the two men that should not matter in football, or America, but does matter in football, and in America. Frank Reich is white and Steve Wilks is Black.
Wilks is part of a federal lawsuit filed by Black coaches who claim the NFL has historically discriminated against them. The Washington Post did an investigation last year that found they’re essentially right–Black coaches have to work longer to get top jobs, and don’t last as long as white coaches when they do get them.
The Panthers have had five full-time coaches in their history–Dom Capers, George Seifert, John Fox, Ron Rivera and now Reich. That’s four white coaches and one Latino. Wilks is the Panthers’ second interim coach, following Perry Fewell in 2019. Both of them are Black. Neither one ended up with the full-time job.
The strongest feeling I get in all this is that David Tepper has a shaky trigger finger. Since he bought the Panthers less than five years ago, he has let go three head coaches: Rivera and Matt Rhule and now Wilks. He also fired the head coach of Charlotte FC in that team’s first season. I’d hate to be his executive chef.
I don’t want any of this to make it seem like Steve Wilks is some sort of secret football genius. The Panthers’ gig was actually his second run at a head-coaching job. He went 3-13 with Arizona back in 2018. But that team and last year’s Panthers were major rebuilding projects. By the end of the year, Panthers players were openly rooting for him to get the job full-time. Players don’t always know what’s best for the team as a whole. But their support should count for something.
There is no current evidence that Frank Reich is a lot better at head coaching than Steve Wilks is. There is a lot of evidence, historically, that guys like Frank Reich get chances that guys like Steve Wilks do not. If the Panthers luck into a great quarterback soon, who knows–maybe one day we’ll be toasting Reich in a Super Bowl parade. But the one thing we’ll never know is what Steve Wilks could have done with the same team.
Tommy Tomlinson’s "On My Mind" column runs Mondays on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section below. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org.
