EXCLUSIVE: 1-on-1 with Panthers’ interim head coach Chris Tabor

CHARLOTTE (CHARLOTTE SPORTS LIVE) — “In this business, the NFL train is always moving. The NFL monster will eat you at any time and you need to be prepared and you need to take the proper steps to set yourself up for success and that’s what we’re trying to work on right now,” Chris Tabor said Tuesday morning.

Tabor, the Panthers’ special teams coordinator, was announced as the team’s interim head coach Monday following the firing of previous head coach Frank Reich.

Carolina Panthers fire Frank Reich after Sunday’s loss, 1-10 start

Tabor does have experience as an interim head coach when he filled the role with the Chicago Bears for one game when head coach Matt Nagy tested positive for COVID-19 in 2021.

He’s been in the NFL for 16 years, but his only head coaching experience comes from one year in 2001 with the Culver Stockton College Wildcats. In that one year, he got the school its first winning season in more than 15 years.

Before that, he spent four years as an assistant at Missouri. After Culver Stockton, Tabor was an assistant head coach at Utah State for four seasons. The next two years he spent at Western Michigan and that would be his last two years coaching college football.

Tabor’s first NFL stint was with the Bears in 2008 as an assistant in special teams. He became a full-time special teams coordinator for the Cleveland Browns in 2011 and stayed there until 2018 when he went back to the Bears with the same position.

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Matt Rhule hired Tabor ahead of the 2022 season and Frank Reich kept him on the staff for 2023.

“The NFL is also a business, so I’m well aware of that, and I’m very grateful and thankful for coach Reich keeping me around last year when he first got here,” Tabor said during Tuesday’s press conference.

In an exclusive interview with Charlotte Sports Live’s Carla Gebhart, Tabor explains the “whirlwind” of emotions since Frank Reich was fired and the expectations for the Panthers for the rest of the season.

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