Everything That Went Wrong During Frank Reich's Short Tenure in Carolina

Why Reich didn't last with the Panthers.

Frank Reich was relieved of his duties as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers Monday morning following a 1-10 start to his first year on the job. It was a brief, yet ugly era, forcing owner David Tepper to fire his second coach in as many years.

Why did the Reich/Panthers marriage not work out?

Offense lacked playmakers

For a rookie quarterback to succeed, he has to have a lot of things go right. For Bryce Young, it's been a lot of things that have gone wrong. The free agent signings of Miles Sanders and Hayden Hurst looked great on paper. Many saw this as giving Young two reliable checkdown options in the passing game but neither have played up to expectations. For the most part, the run game has been nonexistent and with no rushing attack you have no offense. 

But back to the passing game, I'm not sure why the front office felt like DJ Chark and a 33-year-old Adam Thielen would be enough at receiver. They were banking on Terrace Marshall Jr. becoming the player they saw when they took him in the second round, but he's been a healthy scratch in each of the last two games. Laviska Shenault Jr. was dubbed as a version of Deebo Samuel and although he's been injured, he hasn't been a big-time playmaker when he is on the field. 

This may be the worst wide receiver room in the NFL and when you couple that with an abysmal offensive line, you get a 1-10 record.

Scheme fit

Everyone wondered how the Panthers' defense would handle the transition to a true 3-4 under Ejiro Evero. Instead, it's been the offensive side of the ball that has not handled the switch to a new scheme well. In some respects, you could see this being an issue. Before Matt Rhule was fired last season, the Panthers were a spread offense with Baker Mayfield and they couldn't move the ball. When they committed to a downhill, run-first attack after Rhule was canned, they found success and nearly made the playoffs.

This year, Reich brought in his spread attack and what do you know? The offense struggled mightily. This offensive line, in my opinion, is not as bad as they've put on tape. They are just simply playing in the wrong system. Not tweaking the offense to the offensive line's strengths is on Reich. However, not having the right guys on the roster leads me to my next point.

Fitterer failed him

When you make a coaching change, you have to alter the roster to what that staff wants to do. It's impossible to get everything right with your personnel in one offseason but the offensive line had to be the one area you got right, especially with a rookie quarterback who is much smaller than most starters in the league. If you know you are transitioning to spread offense, you have to identify guys that fit that scheme. Fitterer didn't do that. He elected to rock with the same five that had trouble at the beginning of the 2022 season in a somewhat similar offensive approach. That's on him. It's also on Fitterer that he didn't supply Young with enough at the skill positions which is why many are wondering if his job is in jeopardy as well.

Too many cooks in the kitchen

When Reich put this staff together, it felt like there was no way this could fail. So many experienced, well-respected coaches -- several of which have been head coaches or were viewed as future head coaches. I'm not sure that we will ever know but I often wonder if the difference in offensive philosophies clashed. James Campen did a terrific job with the o-line in a power run scheme. Thomas Brown came from the Sean McVay tree that features tons of pre-snap motion and post-snap movement. And Frank Reich has the spread background with bigger, pocket passer type of quarterbacks. It didn't feel like a staff that was on the same page.

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