Welcome back to Panthers Playbook Emergency Podcast episode. Actually not being joined by Chris Lee being joined by Tim Donnelly host of the drive on 99 9, the F Frank Reich fired Frank Reich, fired, uh I have the statement here from the Panthers, David Tepper, the owner, uh I met with coach Reich this morning and informed him that he will, he will no longer continue as head coach of the Carolina Panthers. I want to thank Frank, uh, Frank for his dedication service. Wish him well, effective immediately. Special teams coordinator, Chris Tabor will serve as our interim head coach. Senior assistant Jim Caldwell will be a special advisor to offensive coordinator Thomas Brown who will take over play calling duties. Ok. Actually, before we get into who’s actually taking over the, the coaching duties for the moment, we kind of saw this coming, didn’t we? Right? Because we talked about it before the Dallas game on your show on the drive about. Ok. They lose to Dallas. Ok. That makes sense. Dallas is a way better team, but you can’t go on the road to a Tennessee team with Will Levis who was picked 32 spots after Bryce Young and you only put up 10 points again. It’s, it’s the full picture, you know, David Tepper is impatient 100%. You know that Tennessee is not a juggernaut. So when you lose to them, it’s a little embarrassing, you know, that they’re using a quarterback who was drafted after Bryce Young. So it’s even more embarrassing the fourth quarterback taking the draft, not even a first rounder. Uh And then on top of that, it, it’s, I mean, it became a black cloud hanging over the franchise where every press conference started with job security questions and, and as long as that’s happening, it’s hard to like build confidence in any of your players, your quarterback or anybody else and, and Dave, like I said, and then we need to see it again. Uh Say it again, David temper’s impatient. So this is the second straight season where he’s fired a coach in season and, and second straight season, Frank Reich’s been fired in season also good point. So it’s, it’s, it’s one of those deals where it feels like a full reset is needed. I’ll actually say this. I’m surprised Scott Fitter wasn’t included in the press conference. I’m surprised the last sentence wasn’t. Oh, by the way, the G MS also gone, but it, but it probably should have been uh a full scale reset and, and then you pick the guys that you think Bryce Young needs to be to be built up rather than whatever they’re doing with him this year. So, yeah. Right. I’m surprised that Federer has yet to be let go. I think the moment the clock really started ticking when he took back overplay, calling from Thomas Brown because that was a full indication of. All right, this ship is going down, this plane is going down. I’m gonna be the one holding the stick at least. And I, I think that’s a funny narrative that it took over was if we’re going down, I want to be the one at the wheel because, uh, since he took over, I, I have the stats here in the two games, Frank Reich, uh, since he reclaimed the play calling, uh, they’ve scored 20 points, they’ve allowed 11 sacks and they’ve averaged just 22.5 or 222.5 yards per game and 1/4 and sixth wide receiver screen on a two minute drill. So it’s kind of like, great. You were going down, you grabbed the wheel and steered it down the decision. I agree. I don’t even know if, if that was when the clock started ticking or if that was a decision made because he heard the ticking clock. But it, it, it definitely wasn’t the fix. You know what I mean? You had tried that and I thought going back to it was, was desperate and I’ve never seen a coach coach better desperate than they did confident and Frank Wright got progressively more desperate as the season went along and I think in the end that ended up sealing his fate. All right. So Tabor is gonna be the interim head coach, the special teams coordinator, which is perfectly fine because you know what, let Thomas Brown focus on being a play caller. Let IL focus on being a defensive play caller. Let those guys focus, focus on their jobs and that way they don’t have the burden of wait. Like for example, Thomas Brown, I have to be take back overplay calling duties and be the head coach at the same time. I think that’s actually good, not only for the team now, but for their futures going forward was Steve Wilks, was Steve Wilkes not available, couldn’t bring him in. Well, it should have kept him, that’s a different conversation. Um I, I think it’s interesting not giving it to ever. Um Also as an audition. Um And, and I, I think kind of what they’re going to try to do is hide him a bit, which gives whoever the next head coach is the option to keep ever because the defense has not been the problem, the, the defense. I actually think he’s done some good things on that side of the ball, especially with all the injuries that they’ve had all the injuries, the emergence of Frankie Lou, like you have to, that’s a diamond in the rough find and and he was playing well last year, but obviously taking it up this year. Uh, so I think they want to give him the option. Whoever the next the guy is, hey, if you want to keep eo that side of the ball, we’re ok with the problem was our head coach was an offensive guy and the offense was the problem. So, uh, we had to address that. I agree, not giving it to. Thomas Brown is fine. I, I wanna see Thomas Brown as a play caller for a full year or not, not a full year for the rest of the year, I guess I should say. Um, and, and Jim Caldwell being an advisor, I think is a good move. I think there’s, there were too many cooks in the offensive kitchen and Frank Reich was the head chef. So, so getting him out of there allows some of these other guys to have their voice a bit louder and we’ll see what Thomas Brown could do as an offensive coordinator where he can, maybe he can implement some of his stuff because let’s be real. That was Frank Reich’s offense, but let’s see what Thomas Brown can do. I know it’s gonna be all right, you got a week to prepare for a game, you’re not gonna install a whole new stuff, but the philosophy, different ideas, different stuff going on. Uh, I talked with Mike Glennon about this, uh, NC state quarterback, longtime NFL quarterback and I think he said he was in the league for like nine full seasons and he had some like eight cod ordinators and, and in season, if the head coach is still there changing play callers, he’s like, that’s not even, that’s, you know, in the scheme of things, that’s nothing because the, the terminology is the same, you’re calling from the same playbook, everybody that was inputting into the play or the, the game plan was still inputting to the, to the game plan. But he said once, once firings happen, right? Coaches are, are gone, coordinators are gone midea. There are more substantial changes because now you have a different recipe of, of guys going into the game plan and, and that’s what Bryce Young’s gonna deal with. Now, even if it’s just adding different wrinkles, wrinkles are, are kind of a big deal, right? Wrinkles are your shot plays. Wrinkles are your third down plays. Wrinkles are your, your, uh, you know, more surprising counters and, and things like that. So we get to see again. I keep bringing up Bryce Young’s name just because this whole season’s about him. We get to see Bryce Young with, with a different, uh recipe here, which, which I think is important. I think if he plays, I mean, I’m not even asking for like 10% better from, from down the stretch. You have your scapegoat, right? You blame you blame Frank Reich. It boosts Bryce’s confidence Right. Did you see how much you improved once we got the offense settled and going in the right direction and it could completely change the, the vibe of the off-season. But the big if is you have to play better down the stretch. It, it can’t keep being, uh, you know, business as usual as it’s been this year. All right, looking past, beyond this year, we’ll wrap up on this, beyond this season. You still don’t have a first round pick. You don’t have a lot of draft capital and you’re a search for a head coach again again, like this, I’m sorry, like, like the, the rebuild for this team is going to take a long, long time. I go back to a, a, um, an insider report from Jonathan Jones of CBS last week that said Sharks were circling this job. I wonder if Frank or uh David Tepper didn’t almost read that and go. Oh, really? Right. Like, you know, you don’t realize how much your house is worth until someone comes up and says I’ll give you X amount of dollars for it and you’re like, well, maybe I will sell, maybe I, maybe I will look for, you know, a place closer to the beach or whatever it is. Uh, if there are sharks circling that the appeal is Bryce Young. If you’re looking at this team and saying Frank Reich mishandled the number one overall pick Heisman trophy winning Alabama’s super efficient quarterback and he was holding him if I show up and, and put my secret sauce on there and he plays much better. Suddenly, I’m, I’m one of the hottest names in coaching. I’m, I’m a quarterback guru, which you know, the, the mcveigh’s and Shanahan’s and Andy Reid will show you that’s a lucrative uh title to, to have uh given to you quarterback guru. So, so I think the appeal is if you think Bryce Young has been held back, you come in, you unleash him next season. Oh, look at this. Now. All of a sudden, everybody likes you and they, I mean, they don’t have their first round pick. It’s likely gonna be a high second and they have a bunch of uh cap. So there are things you can do, but you have to have a lot of confidence in yourself to just fix what is there because it’s, it’s let me, let me be clear on this one. They’re a mess right now. Oh, absolutely. Top to bottom. You, you’re taking over a fixer upper. If you take this job, it’s, it’s Chip and Joanna Ga style and you might have dance sign or 2.0 as an owner with, with, with uh with temper. That’s seriously what it’s feeling. Right right now, all this has been an emergency episode of Panthers playbook. Make sure you subscribe here on 99 9, the fans youtube page also where you follow your podcast. Make sure you follow as well. Also, wr all Sports fan.com head there for the latest updates involving the Carolina Panthers.

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