The Carolina Panthers fired their head coach last week, in the midst of another bleak season for Charlotte pro sports. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his "On My Mind" commentary, says the problems go straight to the top.
You’ve probably heard the old saying: If you run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk. But if you run into jerks all day, maybe YOU’RE the jerk.
Here’s a version Charlotte sports fans might identify with. If you fire an incompetent coach, you fired an incompetent coach. But if you keep firing incompetent coaches, maybe you’re incompetent.
David Tepper has been the owner of the Carolina Panthers for six seasons. The Panthers are now on their sixth head coach since he got here. He fired Ron Rivera in 2019, Matt Rhule last year and Frank Reich last week. Tepper also didn’t keep either of his interim coaches, Perry Fewell and Steve Wilks. Chris Tabor is now the Panthers’ interim coach. Don’t expect to see him for long, either.
Tepper also owns the Charlotte FC soccer team. He’s already fired two head coaches there, and the team has only played two seasons.
It’s a fairly uncommon thing in pro sports to fire a coach in midseason. But between the Panthers and the soccer team, Tepper has now done it four times. The silver lining is, if we hang around long enough, all of us will get a chance to coach one of his teams at some point.
At least Charlotte FC made the playoffs this year. The Panthers haven’t sniffed a winning record since Tepper bought the team in 2018. And this year’s team is the worst in the league. The Panthers mortgaged their future to take quarterback Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft, giving up two first-round picks, two second-round picks, and one of their best players, wide receiver D.J. Moore. Young has looked awful, and even worse considering that C.J. Stroud, the quarterback the Panthers didn’t take, is going to be Rookie of the Year down in Houston.
The problem is, it’s hard to judge Young fairly because the Panthers’ offensive line has served as an EZ Pass lane for opposing defenses. Young has been hit more than a stuntman in a kung fu movie.
A smarter team might build an offense first and then insert a young quarterback into it. But slow and thoughtful doesn’t seem to be Tepper’s way. He’s clearly a smart guy — he’s made billions as a hedge fund manager, enough to buy the Panthers 10 times over. But I’m afraid he might be one of those irrational confidence guys who thinks that because he’s good at one thing, that means he’s good at everything.
Pro sports is littered with those guys — oilmen and tech bros who think their genius is universal. Even former athletes get infected with it. Michael Jordan the player was the greatest of all time; Michael Jordan the owner couldn’t make the Charlotte Hornets any better than mediocre.
This is the 34th season of the NBA in Charlotte — between the Hornets and the Bobcats — and the 29th season for the Panthers. Throw in two seasons of Charlotte FC, and that’s 65 seasons. Those teams have never won a single championship. We’re 0-for-65.
Maybe that’s why Tepper’s coaching roulette stings so much. It’s clear that he’s not just failing, but flailing. And Charlotte sports fans have seen this show too many times already.
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 at wfae.org. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org
