Tuesday was a strange day for the Panthers, for various reasons.
One weird little twist that was largely overlooked happened near the outset of owner David Tepper’s press conference regarding the firing of coach Frank Reich. At one point, he said this: “I have great respect for Frank Reich, he is a fine man.”
The nutty part comes from the manner in which Tepper pronounced Reich’s name. Tepper said it phonetically, with a “ch” sound at the end.
No one has ever pronounced Reich’s name that way during his 30-plus years in the NFL’s overall consciousness. There’s never been a time when he went with that pronunciation as the preferred pronunciation. I’d never, ever heard anyone say it that way.
Until yesterday, a day after Tepper fired Reich 11 games into his first season as the team’s coach.
It was either accidental or intentional. The fact that Tepper did it twice during the press conference suggests it was no accident — unless it’s some chronic, bizarre mental block that keeps him from pronouncing certain names the right way.
If it’s intentional, that’s as petty as it gets. And it’s as disrespectful as it gets.
And it’s proof of the “I’ll do what I want” attitude that plenty of multibillionaires bring to anything and everything they do.
It’s another reason why whoever takes that job had better ask for hazard pay and an ironclad contract with no loopholes or ways to avoid owing the coach every dollar, if/when he’s inevitably fired by the “extremely patient” owner who made it clear that he will be involved in every big decision, and that he reserves the right to veto everyone in the football operations department, if he sees fit.
Even then, life’s too short to waste on trying to work for Tepper.
