Charlotte FC, Panthers owner David Tepper fired another head coach. So what else is new?

David Tepper fell out of love with another head coach Wednesday, which is more or less an annual occurrence.

If a coach manages to last three full seasons under Tepper, I’m going to buy that man a beer and ask him how in the world he did it. This time Tepper — the mercurial, impatient, gregarious and occasionally infuriating billionaire owner of both the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC — got rid of Christian Lattanzio, which means the Queen City’s Major League Soccer team has now played for two seasons and gone through two coaches.

One head coach a year is about the average for the Panthers, too, if you count the interim coaches, which I do because it’s technically accurate and definitely more fun.

There have been five Panthers head coaches since Tepper bought the team from Jerry Richardson in 2018. Five!

Tepper inherited the winningest coach the Panthers ever had, Ron Rivera, before the 2018 season began. He fired Rivera late in the 2019 season and replaced him with interim coach Perry Fewell for the final four games.

Then came Matt Rhule, a college wunderkind who signed a seven-year contract and lasted less than a third that long in Charlotte after going 11-27. After that came Steve Wilks, who coached the final 12 games of the 2022 season on an interim basis, went 6-6, provided a good case for becoming the permanent head coach but didn’t get the job.

And now the Panthers have Frank Reich, who is 1-7 in his first season of a four-year contract that will be an absolute miracle if he gets to work in Charlotte all the way through it.

Which coach was it?

Just before the 2022 NFL Draft, Tepper held a rare press conference and said: “There’s a saying and I didn’t make it up. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And it wasn’t. And neither is this team.”

He got that right. The roads to Rome are barely paved at this point, yet Tepper keeps firing the head contractor.

I was out of town Wednesday morning, taking my 16-year-old daughter on a trip to visit a couple of colleges. When I heard that Tepper had fired another head coach, my first reaction wasn’t surprise. There have been too many of them for that.

I just asked, wearily: “Which one?”

Tepper really wants to be handing out championship rings some day.

Instead, he keeps handing out severance packages.

Of course, it’s Tepper’s money, he has more of it than most of us put together, and he can do what he wants with it. What’s frustrating is that Tepper either keeps choosing the wrong guys to lead his teams or he wouldn’t know a Bill Belichick or Don Shula if one appeared at his doorstep tomorrow.

Let’s get back to soccer for a moment, because that’s where the latest news came. It was Lattanzio who got the pink slip Wednesday, 18 months after Tepper had fired Miguel Angel Ramirez halfway through Charlotte FC’s first season. (Ramirez, Rivera and Rhule have all been fired while their seasons were still going on).

Is Ted Lasso available?

I don’t pretend to know who’s a great soccer coach and who’s not. Is Ted Lasso available for Charlotte FC? If not, I’m a little bit lost. And the Lattanzio firing can be justified to some extent, even though he had signed a contract extension only a year ago.

Yes, Charlotte FC made the 2023 MLS playoffs with a late-season run and beat Lionel Messi to do so, but the team also came in ninth in the 15-team Eastern Conference, and that postseason “run” was really not much different than making the NBA’s “play-in” postseason game, although it’s called something different. Charlotte FC underachieved in comparison to its preseason expectations and quickly got bounced out of the play-in, Charlotte Hornets style.

Lattanzio at least got 1.5 seasons, compared to Ramirez’s 0.5.

At Ramirez’s first press conference, Tepper was asked how long he hoped the coach would hold the job.

“I’d like him to be here forever,” Tepper said. Forever lasted less than a year.

Were all these men victims of a Tepper tantrum?

Or were all the firings somehow justified?

I’d lean toward it being some of each, but the firings are rarely explained. When the first soccer coach got fired, there was at least a press conference with the team’s sporting director. This time, Lattanzio and Charlotte FC’s parting of the ways, as the team euphemistically put it via press release, with stilted statements and not much more.

Tepper isn’t a patient man. We all know that. Hedge fund billionaires rarely are. And In this column I’m only talking about his record with pro sports head coaches, because if we go down the “Rock Hill/Eastland Mall/new stadium/renovated stadium/revolving team executives/public money vs private money/artificial turf/but hey what about all the concerts now” rabbit hole we’re going to be here all week.

With Rhule, Tepper did try to be patient, often referring to the current Nebraska coach needing five years to thoroughly rebuild the Panthers.

“Maybe it’ll be six years,” Tepper said once, “I don’t know.”

Instead, Tepper tired of Rhule, as did most Panther fans, and fired him in October 2022. Tepper and I had an awkward exchange at the end of that press conference that got viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Frank Reich vs. Matt Rhule

Reich is the anti-Rhule in several ways, primarily in terms of his deep NFL experience.

But now the national talk shows are debating: “Will Frank Reich only get one year as Carolina’s head coach?” I think he’ll get two until he’s in serious jeopardy and that general manager Scott Fitterer, who pre-dates Reich by two years, is on a hotter seat at the moment.

But no one really knows. Tepper isn’t talking publicly, although he certainly has had numerous conversations with Reich about this 1-7 start entering Thursday night’s game at Chicago.

Reich is a veteran coach and player in the NFL and has worked under numerous different team owners. In a very even tone last month, Reich said Tepper was an owner who “doesn’t sit idly by.”

Expounding on that point, Reich said: “There are different philosophies in ownership, you know what I mean? Some owners stay away, and don’t engage a whole lot. Other owners do. His philosophy is, he’s gonna engage. And listen, it’s only been a short experience, but it’s been a really good experience.”

Of his conversations with Tepper after losses, Reich added: “It hasn’t been fun. It’s not fun. Those meetings, I wouldn’t characterize them as fun meetings. But those meetings make me better, and I trust they make us better.”

Well, they definitely don’t sound fun. Reich made that point — repeatedly. But have they really made the Panthers better?

With a fully engaged Tepper, the Panthers have gone 30-60 in 5-plus seasons. They haven’t had a winning season, they are losing two games out of every three and they haven’t made the playoffs.

Charlotte FC did make the playoffs this year, very briefly, but also has had two losing records in two seasons. Maybe it’s time for Tepper to try something different, particularly with the Panthers. The team believes it has found its quarterback now in rookie No. 1 pick Bryce Young, whom Tepper predicted in April would lead the team to “Super Bowls.” Yes, it was plural.

So the Panthers’ big problem has been “solved,” even though the results aren’t showing that yet.

But if that’s the case: Tepper can just sign the checks and otherwise stay out of football. Just run the business side. Just for one season. For the soccer team, help hire the head coach. And then let that team find its footing on its own.

Because what’s going on now, with FET (Fully Engaged Tepper) for both the Panthers and Charlotte FC? It’s just not working. Not even close.

A year ago, when Tepper and I had that awkward televised exchange in which he came off as somewhat abrupt, I wrote in a column that I didn’t want or need an apology from him.

I just wanted him to become a better owner.

I’m still waiting.

I bet you are too.