A new HC officially starts for the Carolina Panthers

We all welcome in Frank Reich today, our new head coach for the Carolina Panthers. And what you just saw, those were the first brush strokes on what is largely a blank canvas. When you hire a new coach, it's a clean slate. It's a barren blank canvas.

But that canvas represents possibility. And in his career as a player and a coach, Frank Reich has always shown us what is possible. As you saw on the video, he rallied his college team from 31 down, rallied his NFL team, the Buffalo Bills, from 32 down in a playoff game. We have seen him tasked as the new quarterback to steward a new franchise into a brave new world. We've seen him adapt to circumstances, like when he lost a quarterback in the midst of an MVP season, only to shepherd the backup to a Super Bowl win. He is a part of this franchise's origin story. First quarterback, he threw the first pass. He took the first snap.

He threw the first touchdown pass. Frank Reich has been a part of many firsts in this franchise's history, and we're looking forward that you now get a chance to show us what's next. Before we move on, there's some people we'd like to recognize in attendance today. Panthers owners David Tepper and Nicole Tepper, team president Christy Coleman, general manager Scott Fitterer. A number of players have joined us today. I see Taylor Moten, Brady Christensen, Dante Jackson, Jeremy Chin, Marquis Haynes, Chuba Hubbard, Iki Iquanu, all here. Former players in attendance today as well. Carlton Bailey, John Casey, Pete Metzolars, who caught that first touchdown pass from Frank, Mark Rodenhauser, Dwight Stone, and Gerald Williams. We also have the family of our new head coach Frank Reich, wife Linda, children Hannah, Leah, and Avery, and their husbands Andrew, Thomas, and Brett. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to celebrate this momentous day. It's my pleasure now to welcome to the stage the owner of the Carolina Panthers, David Tepper. You heard the voice, the play-by-play voice, Anish Sharaf of the Carolina Panthers. This is the Frank Reich introductory press conference. Now we're going to David Tepper, the owner.

Did a good job taking half of what I was going to say away. But I just want to just recognize a couple things about Frank. He's a man of incredible integrity, an incredible family man. A person that we could tell has great process and a great way of doing things.

You know, that basically has, you know, a guy that basically checks all the boxes and a guy that you really want to basically help build a culture and help lead a team, hopefully for the next few years and beyond. There's really nothing else for me to say. I'm just going to turn it over to you, Frank. We're really excited about having you here and helping us to build something great. Frank Reich about to take the stage. That was David Tepper, the owner of the Carolina Panthers.

This is the Adam Gold show, Frank Reich's introductory press conference. Well, I just want to begin by saying thank you. Thank you to Mr. Tepper and Nicole Tepper for just an incredible opportunity to come back home, to lead a team and a franchise in which we were here at the beginnings, but to take on new challenges and to take us to new heights. We know that's a collective process. I appreciate the opportunity to work under the leadership of an owner and his wife who have already accomplished crazy things in their own life. I want to tap into that energy, that expertise, that innovation, that creativity to build to be the best.

As I went through the interview process, that's what I heard very clearly from Mr. Tepper. That's the standard. That's what we're reaching for.

Nothing but the best. Let's be excellent. Let's have a consistency of excellence in everything that we do to create a championship caliber team and a championship caliber organization. This is the NFL.

The difference between winning and losing is really small. Every year we see it. We see teams go from big time losing to big time winning, even competing for championships all in the space of one year. It's possible. But how does that happen?

How do you turn things around? The reason we see these things happen is because what we all already instinctively know that winning, the difference between winning and losing, it's in the margins. It's in the details. It's one player at a time. It's one play at a time.

It's one detail at a time. It's about focusing on getting it right, not who is right, not being right. We're going to get it right together.

It's not a one man show. You will see that as a coach and as a coaching staff, we will collaborate. We will collaborate with ownership, with Scott Fitter, the GM, with Christy Coleman, the president, the whole crew. We will collaborate together to create a championship caliber organization. And we will collaborate with the players, coaches and players together. This is a player's game. There's one thing I know being in this business as a player and coach for 30 years. This is a player's game. There are the stars, right? But we do it together as a team. There are no shortcuts.

There are no shortcuts. It's all about the process. It's all about the people. And so we're just going to focus on progress, getting better every day. There's a quote that's been on my desk since my rookie year in 1985. And you'll hear me say this a lot. And it says this, that no man becomes suddenly different from his habits and cherished thoughts.

You know, no man becomes suddenly different from his habits and cherished thoughts. And so we're going to be a team and an organization that is about creating championship habits, championship thoughts, championship thoughts. We're going to cultivate those. We're going to nurture those. And those are going to grow.

They're going to be infectious. And we want to feel those. And we want to feel that in the community. And we're so excited to really partner with our fans because that's a very important part of the process. My family's already been acknowledged, but I want to acknowledge them again.

My wife, Linda, we've been married 36 years partners for life. We're a football family. Linda and I, as we've moved around the NFL, we only know one way to do it. That's to dive all in. To dive all in. Obviously, I'm diving all into the football process. Linda's leading our efforts as a family to dive into the community and what we do from a charitable standpoint to help serve this community. So we commit to you and we promise to you, we will dive all in. This is about football and this is about winning. That's why I was hired.

But it's also about doing it the right way and being part of something special. Of course, our daughters, Leah, Avery, and Hannah, was mentioned in early to a group that we're a football family. These girls, they all throw a pretty mean spiral. I taught them when they were young. I'm not sure they still got that in their repertoire.

They're all, we grew up, they know the X's and I used to take them on dates and teach them the X's and O's and the whole deal. And then of course, our son-in-laws, Thomas, Brett, and Andrew, when they met our daughters, I had to tell them to put all their, they're all from North Carolina, so they all had their Panthers gear. I had a, of course, when you're with other teams, you had to tell them to put that all in the back of the closet. Well, now I told you, you can bring that Panthers gear, put it in the front of the closet, right?

Put that back at the front of the closet. And then I want to acknowledge my former teammates from that 1995 season, the first season ever. What a great experience to be a part of a team, the first inaugural season, special memories for us as a team. Carleton Bailey, John Casey, Pete Metzlars, Mark Rodenhauser, Dwight Stone, and Gerald Williams. Appreciate you guys being here.

And then of course, just the friends in the community, the support has been overwhelming just in a short amount of time. But in short, as I wrap up, the vision is clear. As we talked with Scott Fitterer and with Mr. Tepper, it's to bring, to create a band of excellence, create this consistency of excellence that at the top end is championships and at the bottom, at the bottom end, we're a playoff team. Create that consistency of excellence that produces championships, that brings championships to the Carolinas. It takes four pillars to do that, right?

If you're going to build that championship caliber team, it takes four pillars. It's ownership and the organization. I was telling a bunch of people earlier, my, through the interview process to get to know Mr. Tepper and Nicole was very dynamic, to see and hear and feel their vision, but also to feel the conversation that we had, the partnership that started to, you could start to feel as we went through the interview process. That's a big deal.

And of course, it's not just the ownership, it's the whole organization. For me to get a chance, the most important relationship is really with Scott Fitterer, the GM, head coach and GM. You know, we got to be like this. We're together every day. We got to, with, along with Mr. Tepper, come up with the blueprint of what this team is going to look like and who we're going to be. So really excited to work with Scott. Class act, we're going to fit together perfect as I'm getting to know him. His expertise is going to be a great asset to me and to our team. And so looking forward to that partnership.

And then of course, with Dan Morgan, his assistant, I go back a little bit with him and Samir and, and then even working with Nicole on the business side and Christy Coleman on the business side, for us, that's, that's a very important part of it as well. So it's about ownership. It's about the players.

That's the second pillar. The first is the ownership. You got to have the right ownership to get championships. You got to have the right players. I'm really excited about the roster that we have and the roster that we're going to continue to build. This is what it's all about for me. It's about the relationship and the connection with the players.

We give trust to each other right away, but then we continue to gain trust in each other as we work through and go through this journey together. And then it's about the coaches. You know, one of the things that Mr. Tepper made clear is we're going to get the best of the best. He's willing to help support that effort, you know, to get so that we get the best, not only the best, but the best for our team. So we have the right mix of coaches.

And we will have a great coaching staff. And then lastly, that fourth pillar is about the fans. I mean, we're at that time of year, there's nothing like seeing a football stadium rocking when a team is having success.

And when we're given the community reasons to be excited about, it'll be a special time to be in that stadium and to be walking around the city wearing, wearing the Panthers logo. And then just finally, right, those are the four pillars. And then just finally, this is really to the players.

This is really to the players that are here and the ones that might tune in and they'll hear this soon enough. There's three primary principles. There's three primary principles that we're operate by. The first is a relentless pursuit to get better every day. We've got to have a relentless pursuit to get better every day.

Nothing can ever get in the way of that. We're committed to that to push each other in every way. We got to get better every day.

No one has all the answers. We work together, we collaborate and we push each other to be the best. The second one is that excellence comes through competition. We're going to compete in everything we do in meetings, in the weight room, on the practice field. That's just what, that's the way you get to be the best. You have to compete against one another and bring out the best. And then of course, we'll enjoy competing against the opponents.

That'll be a lot of fun and put that on full display, right? And then lastly, it's going to be about the team, the team, the team, the team. We will celebrate. We got great individual players. They'll, they'll hit many individual milestones and goals and we'll celebrate all those, but the team always comes first. That's what we're going to be about.

And then in closing, I would just say this. We're going to bring a brand of football and a style of football that this city can be proud of. It's going to be exciting in all three phases. It's going to be innovative.

It's going to be creative. We will always be working to get better. And then we're going to do it the right way on and off the field. We want to make you proud. And so just thankful to be back and I'll open it up to questions from there. Frank Reich's introductory press conference here on the Adam Gold Show. They're going to take a few questions.

We'll stick with it for a little bit more. Please raise your hand and we'll do our best to get to you. We'll start with Steve Reed followed by Joe Person and Scott Fowler. Hey Frank.

Frank, Steve Reed from the Associated Press. First of all, welcome back to Carolina. I wonder if, you know, you could talk about the roster that you, you're inheriting here and as you're going through the interview process, what were your thoughts on the roster?

Where do you feel like it needs to get better? What do you see as, as some of the strong suit? I think the defense has been obviously a real strong suit, been top, top level defense, but we're always looking to get better. To be honest, here's what a top, here's what a top five defense gives you an opportunity to do. Top 10 defense is going to give you a chance in every game, but a top five defense is what really can elevate you as a team that you can not only be in every game, but you can find a way to win every game when you've got a top five defense. So we understand we're in a league that is, you know, offensively driven in many ways, but kind of the secret sauce is create and build upon the momentum that we have here, the players, the roster that we have here on defense. Get the right coaches so we have the right scheme that accentuates their gifts. I'm not going to go through player by player.

Scott and I have sat down, started to talk about that. There's still a whole lot more study that needs to go, but obviously that stands out. And then offense, and then offensively was really encouraged as I watched kind of the second half of the season and dig into the tape a little bit. There's so much to build on the offensive line, the running game. You know, we got receivers that can get vertical down the field. The run, you know, the running backs were strong. Foreman had, would look strong at the end of the year. That's going to be really important for us to get the ball vertically down the field, continue to build this roster so that we improve in all three phases, which of course also brings you to special teams, which were top-ranked special teams. You know, this past year, and we look forward, that's an essential part of a championship caliber football team.

Jay Frank, this is Joe Person with The Athletic. Good to see you. Two questions. Will you call the offensive plays? And then secondly, did your experience in Indianapolis, will that make you more likely or more convicted to do the draft and develop route at quarterback? As far as calling plays, I'm going to wait to see that we get the offensive staff together. Obviously, I've always enjoyed doing that. Felt like I've had a good bit of success doing that and enjoyed doing that.

It feels to me there's a little bit of a trend going away from that. I want to really continue to re-examine that, and it just depends on how the staff comes together and the coordinator thing. I'm excited about the prospects of some of the guys that are out there that could be our offensive coordinator, so I'll wait to make the final decision on that.

And part B of that question was? Whether the Indianapolis experience changed your thought on quarterback? You got to have stability at quarterback. You know, you want to have stability at quarterback. So the good thing that I've learned in my past experience here, in the past experience in a few years, is we've learned how to adapt to different styles of quarterbacks, but that's not the ideal situation, right? So we, Mr. Tepper, Scott, and myself, have to commit to what's our blueprint, where, how are we going to maintain stability at quarterback, make a plan, and then execute that plan. Frank, over to your left.

Scott Fowler. Hey Scott. Glad to see you again. Welcome back.

Yes, sir. I wonder two things. One, if you could give us a couple of the specific 1995 memories you have from here.

And then secondly, if you wouldn't mind evaluating a little more specifically, the quarterbacks currently on this roster. The memories from that first season, of course, we didn't play here. We played in Clemson. So one of the memories is the bus rides. You know, it's the camaraderie of the players, right? Your teammates, you know, on these long, you know, we got home games that we're busing to that are, you know, several hours away, and then traffic coming out of Clemson was, you know, a lot of fun.

Clemson was, you know, always a little bit slow, even with an escort. But those are great memories. Those are great memories. I won't go into the details, but some of the memories of our practice facility that year in the showers, there was a unique showering situation.

I'll just put it that way. That was a unique memory. And, you know, the touchdown pass to my friend Pete Metzlars, of course, first touchdown in Panthers history.

You know, I don't have, you know, as a career backup quarterback, I don't have too many highlights. But, you know, to have the first touchdown pass in the team's history is pretty special. You know, and then our first game in Atlanta, you know, we're playing our very first game in team history in Atlanta with, you know, thinking, you know, you're even gonna have a chance and we take the game to overtime.

And we ended up losing in overtime, but I'll never forget that first game. All right. Thank you, Phil.

Mike Kay and Ellis Williams, please. I hate Frank. All right. That's Frank Reichs by at least the first bit of the Q&A of the first press conference as head coach of the Carolina Panthers for Frank Reich. If there are other things that come out of it that jump out as we must hear it, we will bring it to you.

We have all hands on deck today getting Frank Reichs sound. All right. Well, there's a bunch of things. First of all, let me just recap what we just heard. We started with Aneesh Sharaf, the play by play voice of the Carolina Panthers, introducing a video which had the highlight of that Frank Reich to Pete Metzilar's touchdown, the first touchdown pass in Panthers history. David Tepper spoke for 30 seconds, maybe 30, right? I mean, it's like nothing like that, which is fine. Yeah, absolutely fine. But he was just and maybe that's a good thing.

Could that be a good sign if we could just kind of extract positive vibes out of that? The the fact that maybe he just wants to remove himself from all of this, which we all want, which is yes, because good owners, good owners are not the story. Jerry Jones that I say that I was supposed to be parentheses.

I apologize. So let the people that you hire run your football team, hire good people, let them do their jobs. Don't think that. Honestly, don't demean the profession by thinking that you know what's up, because most of the time you did your best work outside of the sport. Jerry Jones did his best business work, although the business of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones has certainly done a good job at the football side. Not so much. So I would argue that you should just own, hire people to do the job and then just own and revel and be a fan. Right?

Anyway, so maybe David Tepper just wants to stay out of it. And that would be a positive thing. Frank Reich took the stage, gave us one of his favorite quotes. No man becomes suddenly different from his habit and cherished thoughts. You know, essentially, you are what you, what you are, what you dream to be is and by living it every day and going through the process of, you know, attaining those things, you become better and you become more consistent. It becomes, I guess the, the better sports way of saying that is, you know, practice makes perfect, but coaches will take it to another level. Perfect practice makes perfect. See, see how coaches are.

Then we had four pillars. We had three principles. The three principles of practice, principles, the three principles of relentless pursuit to get better. Excellence comes through competition. And then everything is about the team, the team, the team, which is all of those things are good.

They're going to be exciting, innovative and creative in all three phases. And then they went on a couple of questions about one, the roster, and we'll get into those things and whether or not he's going to call plays, which is interesting. He was a little vague about their plan at quarterback, and then he ignored the quarterback question from Scott Fowler about the current quarterbacks on the roster.

And that's probably a good thing. I mean, I wanted to hear the answer, but I think it's probably a good thing because at best there is one veteran quarterback that might, that you might want to stick around, but probably as a backup or no better than a bridge to whatever's next. There's no starting NFL quarterback on the roster. Now, I don't think they're moving away from Matt Corral. I don't think they're throwing him away, but it does make me feel like in Frank Reich's mind, their quarterback day one isn't here right now. Whether that's a veteran quarterback or somebody through the draft, the day one quarterback in Frank Reich's mind is unlikely to be in Charlotte at the moment.