After firing head coach Frank Reich in the middle of his first season, there have been concerns about dysfunction within the Carolina Panthers team facility.
However, dysfunction may not be what’s been reportedly going on within the Panthers’ team facility justice. The Athletic reported that an unnamed source said there was a “Hunger Games” culture within the facility.
Now, interim head coach Chris Tabor has, predictably, succinctly shot down that idea of dysfunction.
“It’s been fine,” Tabor said. “I haven’t had a problem.”
According to The Athletic, after talking to 20 people around the Panthers, the picture of dysfunction started to become clear. That included coaches messaging owner David Tepper about Frank Reich and others trying to tell Tepper how to coach players like Bryce Young. This, for the most part, seems to have begun after it was clear Reich wasn’t going to be there long.
“Team sources described a ‘Hunger Games’ culture at Bank of America Stadium,” the article states. “Coaches said they believed other staff members were text messaging Tepper behind Reich’s back about issues they saw with the team. In one instance, general manager Scott Fitterer and an offensive coach went to Tepper with a coaching suggestion for the quarterback.”
For his part, Chris Tabor was the special teams coordinator prior to becoming the interim head coach. It’s also not surprising that he would deny any dysfunction within the Panthers facilities. After all, he has nothing to gain by publicly admitting that kind of thing.
There are also concerns that Panthers owner David Tepper is micromanaging the organization, especially in the wake of the firing of Frank Reich. Including interims like Chris Tabor, Carolina has had six head coaches since Tepper bought the franchise in 2018.
Panthers’ David Tepper says former head coach firings won’t make it harder to hire next one
The large number of firings has led to people theorizing that the Panthers may struggle to find a new head coach. However, David Tepper doesn’t believe that’s the case.
“I’m not going to get into it here, but I think that there are different reasons why different things happen in each case. Everything is out in the field, everything is known over time and I think people know it, the league knows it and people in the league know it. If everything was perfect, it wouldn’t be the case. If everything was good, it wouldn’t be the case. It’s not as if it’s not known out there,” Tepper said.
“I would like someone to be here 20, 30 years. I’d like to have someone say the eulogy at my funeral in 30 years. OK, maybe 40 years.”
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