What NFL insiders said after David Tepper, Carolina Panthers fire coach Frank Reich

The Carolina Panthers fired Frank Reich less than 24 hours after their 17-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

Owner David Tepper pulled the plug on his first-year head coach amid Carolina’s NFL-worst 1-10 start. A year after firing Matt Rhule midseason and trading for the No. 1 overall pick to draft Bryce Young, the Panthers are going in another direction — again.

“The owner is an issue to me,” Ryan Clark, a former Pro Bowl safety, said Monday morning on ESPN show Get Up. ”When you have a superfan as an owner who wants to play with the team like it’s a toy, you have a lot of issues.”

With special teams coordinator Chris Tabor manning the sidelines for their final six games, the Panthers will have their sixth head coach (including interims) since Tepper bought the team in 2018 (which is likely to reach seven by January, since Tabor will have the “interim” label).

Last year, Carolina traded receiver DJ Moore, its first-round pick (offensive tackle Darnell Wright), second-round pick (cornerback Tyrique Stevenson), this year’s first-round pick (currently No. 1 overall) and a second-rounder in 2025 to the Chicago Bears for that top selection the team used on Young.

“This is probably the best thing to happen to Frank Reich, because now he’s going to have the guaranteed money to go away,” former NFL head coach Rex Ryan said Monday on Get Up. “I saw a man that literally looked like he aged 10 years. And this is what happens when you make the wrong decision on the first pick and set your team back so much.”

Reich’s 11-game tenure as head coach is the shortest the NFL has had since 1978, when the San Francisco 49ers fired Pete McCulley after nine games, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Reich, a former Maryland and NFL quarterback, was also fired last November during his fifth season with the Indianapolis Colts, making him the first coach in NFL history to be fired in back-to-back seasons.

“It’s a (darn) joke is what it is,” Mike Golic, former NFL defensive lineman and ESPN radio host, said on DraftKings’ GoJo and Golic live internet show Monday morning. “Frank Reich doesn’t even get a year? That’s a joke. Your organization ... guess what, you’re not getting better when you keep changing the landscape like this this quickly.

“Unless there’s something that was going on in the locker room, I will not understand this move at all. You have now stopped the progress and will now go backward bringing in a new coach and a new system.”

“Not sure I quite understand what David Tepper is doing here,” former ESPN host Trey Wingo said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter. “Yeah, it’s been a bad season, and you have a rookie quarterback. Maybe you’re upset that you picked the wrong rookie quarterback, we’re seeing that from what CJ Stroud is doing. But I’m not sure firing Frank Reich is going to fix any of the problems the Carolina Panthers have right now.

“Seems like a panic move, and something he’s done on more than one occasion.”