After firing their head coach Matt Rhule mid-season, the Carolina Panthers are officially in the market for a new leader.
One of their main candidates is former Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich.
The #Panthers are interviewing former #Colts HC Frank Reich for their vacant head coaching job today, source said. He spent a year as a player in Carolina and has ties to the area.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 11, 2023
Reich began his tenure with the Colts in 2018, achieving various amounts of success before getting fired earlier this year after a 3-5-1 start to the season.
Before working with the Colts, Reich won a Super Bowl as the offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017 and has a storied history of a winning mentality.
The Panthers could certainly use a coach like Reich to help them rebuild, and hopefully become contenders in the NFC South, a division that saw all four teams post a record under .500.
2017 marked the last time that the Panthers finished the season with a winning record.
In that season, the Panthers drafted Christian McCaffrey, who helped lead them to the playoffs, where they ultimately fell short in the Wild Card round.
Although NFL teams don’t necessarily say this out loud, it appears that the Panthers are in an all-out rebuild.
They traded McCaffrey away mid-season, and, although they have some solid overall players, haven’t been able to find any sort of sustained success in the past few years.
Whether Reich is offered a job or not, the new head coach of the Panthers should inherit a growing situation.
In this upcoming draft, the Panthers will pick ninth overall, and also have two second-round picks.
If they can hit on a gem like McCaffrey, and can also find their quarterback for the foreseeable future, the Panthers may get the jump-start that they have been waiting on for quite some time.
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