Panthers’ initial HC candidate list favors young, offensive-minded coaches

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

The Panthers are casting a wide net in their search for a new head coach, with an initial list of nine candidates requested for online interviews that covers both sides of the ball and a broad range of ages and experience.

Carolina owner David Tepper has made two hires in his time in Charlotte: Matt Rhule in 2020 and Frank Reich in 2023. The first was a 44-year-old college head coach who had just one year of NFL experience; the latter was a 61-year-old former NFL quarterback who won a Super Bowl as an assistant and spent the previous five years as an NFL head coach.

Neither one of those hires worked out, of course, and it’s hard to know how their tenures will shape this search and Tepper’s ultimate decision on who can turn his franchise around after a 2-15 record in 2023 and six straight losing seasons.

The NFL will allow only online interviews in the next two weeks, with in-person interviews not permitted until Jan. 22, setting up a thorough process that has teams evaluating a deep group of candidates. Carolina is one of six current openings — with the Titans, Falcons, Raiders, Commanders and Chargers — though it’s possible interim coach Antonio Pierce gets the job full-time in Las Vegas, and also possible other teams like the Patriots add to the list of openings.

One of Carolina’s top priorities will be finding a coach who can develop rookie quarterback Bryce Young, who struggled through his first year with the Panthers. He threw 11 touchdowns against 10 interceptions after Carolina gave up a package of picks and players, including what ended up the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft, to acquire last year’s top pick from the Bears. To no surprise then, there’s an offensive tilt to the initial list, with six of the nine being NFL offensive coordinators, including some of the league’s most coveted up-and-coming offensive minds.

Three of those — the Lions‘ Ben Johnson (age 37), the Texans‘ Bobby Slowik (36) and the Bengals‘ Brian Callahan (39) — are not even 40 yet, and another two are close in the Dolphins‘ Frank Smith and the Bucs‘ Dave Canales, both 42. The list also includes two older, established defensive coordinators who have been NFL head coaches before: Cowboys DC Dan Quinn, 53, and Rams DC Raheem Morris, 47. Rounding out the list is the oldest of the group, Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, 57, a former college head coach who won two national championships recently running Georgia‘s offense, and Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, the youngest of the group at 36.

Will Tepper seek a younger offensive coach, hoping that can translate to a newer, more innovative offense and a stronger connection with Young? Carolina’s struggles this year were juxtaposed against the immediate success of No. 2 overall pick C.J. Stroud, who led Houston to a division title and 10 wins. Could that convince Tepper that a defensive coach like Houston found in DeMeco Ryans, paired with a strong offensive coordinator, would improve both the team and the quarterback at the same time? Eight of the 14 head coaches in the playoffs this year come from an offensive background, so they’d be following a league-wide trend to go in that direction.

Divining what the Panthers value most is only part of the puzzle. With Carolina earning the worst record in the NFL and not having a first-round pick, with Tepper being seen as impatient and firing three head coaches during the season in six years as owner, the Panthers might not be able to get their pick of the litter, even if their billionaire owner is willing to write a large check. The most coveted candidates might see other teams as easier to turn around quickly, leaving Tepper to wait until other hires are made.

The Panthers put out their list in an act of transparency, but also did so in curious order, not alphabetically by name or team. Atop the list was the Lions’ Johnson, who at 37 might have the most buzz of any candidate, having helped Detroit improve from three wins to nine and now 12 in his two seasons with the team. He is perhaps the only one of the nine with semi-local ties to Carolina, born and raised in Asheville, N.C., and having played as a walk-on quarterback at the University of North Carolina. But local ties also probably helped Reich, who threw the first touchdown in Panthers history in 1995, so that might not be a relevant factor this time around.

Where do Bryce Young, Panthers go after Frank Reich’s firing?

If the priority is developing Young into the kind of elite quarterback you hope for when you trade a fortune to acquire a top pick, then the logical answer is Slowik, who has worked directly with two of the game’s best young passers in the past two years, first with the 49ers‘ Brock Purdy as a rookie in 2022, then with Stroud in Houston this season. Slowik would be the youngest coach in the NFL, and that inexperience would require more patience than Tepper has shown in moving on from Rhule and Reich during the past two seasons.

The initial list of nine current assistants might only be part of a larger pool that could include college coaches like Jim Harbaugh and NFL head coaches fired elsewhere, as was the case with Reich last year. The Panthers are also in the process of hiring a successor to general manager Scott Fitterer, who was let go Monday after three years running Carolina’s front office. The Panthers released a list of eight candidates who are current NFL personnel assistants, and that search will continue simultaneously, if not ultimately ahead of and helping in finalizing a decision on a new head coach.

The NFC South hasn’t had a team win more than nine games in the past two years, so the Carolina job might be seen as being in a relatively easy division, even though the Bucs have won it three years in a row. The Panthers have a last-place schedule, which normally helps such a turnaround, but even that is a mixed blessing, lining them up to play the Bengals and Bears, who finished with nine and seven wins as the best last-place teams in the league.

This hire is Tepper’s best chance to rebrand the Panthers, to take attention away from past struggles and shift them to optimism about the franchise’s future, built around Young. Whether he will be able to land his pick of this year’s hiring cycle remains to be seen, but that process will now unfold over the next few weeks.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.