Frank Reich ultimately became the favorite for the Carolina Panthers during their search for a new head coach. But it didn’t start out that way.
In his latest column, MMQB senior NFL reporter Albert Breer chronicled a bit of Carolina’s path to Reich—one that began with a ton of legwork and a small list of candidates. Breer writes:
“Through the fall, owner David Tepper’s research, as we’ve written in this space, focused largely on innovative offensive minds in general and young ones in particular. With 12 weeks of runway, the Panthers first list was short, and that was by design, with five names on there-former Lions and former Colts coach Jim Caldwell, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Giants OC Mike Kafka, Eagles OC Shane Steichen and the incumbent Wilks.”
So, how did the eventual choice end up in consideration? Well, as Breer continues, their search got a little nudge from a television report.
“But there was a television report late in the season that he’d be considered for the Panthers job, which caused Carolina to double back on the work it had done on the former Colts coach, whom the search committee liked.
“GM Scott Fitterer pulled on his connections to Indy’s front office, including ties to GM Chris Ballard and assistant GM Ed Dodds (his former Seattle coworker), and those guys told him, ‘No, you gotta talk to him.'”
From there, and through the committee’s two rounds of interviews, Tepper asked his braintrust to rank their top five candidates. And as Breer added, Reich topped every single one of them.
Being that Reich is a man of faith, perhaps we can credit his hiring to some divine intervention . . . or just really good timing.
