Frank Reich becomes the FIFTH coach fired by Charlotte sports owner David Tepper since 2018... as the operator of Charlotte FC and the Carolina Panthers shows his ruthless side again

David Tepper has been making his mark on the Charlotte sports scene since buying the Carolina Panthers in 2018. He's brought in an let go five head coaches across two teams since then.

The latest victim of this was Frank Reich - who was let go this morning after putting up a 1-10 record across the first eleven games of the season.

It's a bit of deja vu for Reich, who got the boot in Indianapolis last year - also before the season ended

He becomes the second head coach since 1967 to be fired after his team took a quarterback with the first overall pick - joining Urban Meyer, who left Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence behind due to his less-than-appropriate behavior both on the field and off it.

Reich did not have those problems. He inherited a flawed Panthers team and coached them to ten losses, including four losses decided by one score.

That includes Sunday's 17-10 defeat at the hands of the Tennessee Titans that saw rookie quarterback Bryce Young toss for under 200 yards and no touchdowns while taking four sacks.

Of course, Reich is not solely responsible for the team. It's been flawed in its construction for some time now and the intentions for a rebuild have been obvious - made especially clear when they traded Christian McCaffrey away last year.

The Panthers have the third-worst total offense and the forth-worst scoring offense in the league. That's paired with the third-worst scoring defense in the league that saw Carolina give up an average of 26.5 points a game up to this point.

At the current rate, the Panthers will be the team with the first-overall pick in 2024. Or rather, they would be if they didn't trade this year's first to the Chicago Bears in order to take Young first-overall in this year's draft.

Reich is not in charge of the re-build. That's at the hands of general manager Scott Fitterer who has been in charge of the Panthers since 2021 and has a 13-32 record across that time span. Carolina will have its third consecutive season of ten-losses or more under Fitterer's management.

The question now will be if his name is next on Tepper's chopping block. If there was a way to bet on it, now would be the time to hammer the 'fired' line.

Tepper has been brazen in his decision to axe coaches. He's taken ownership of two teams in the Queen City: the Panthers in 2018 and Charlotte FC in 2019. He was one of the main drivers of bringing the MLS franchise to the town and they play in his NFL team's stadium for the time being.

But in that time span, he's fired three NFL coaches, one NFL general manager, and two MLS coaches. It's the most of any sports ownership group consisting of an NFL and an MLS franchise in that timespan.

Ron Rivera

The Carolina Panthers have been to the Super Bowl twice in their history. The first time came in John Fox's second season as head coach where the team won the NFC South only to fall to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Try number two came in 2015 - where Ron Rivera won his second Coach of the Year award, but his team fell to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 50.

In the years following that, Rivera put up a record of 29-31 with one playoff appearance in the Panthers' (and Rivera's) most recent winning season to date in 2017.

Rivera was axed halfway through the 2019 season after putting up a 5-7 record. His replacement Perry Fewell went 0-4 to close the year with a 5-11 mark and general manager Marty Hurney was shown the door at the end of that campaign as well.

These days, Rivera has been in charge of the Washington Commanders and he hasn't done much better there.

Rivera has coached Washington to a 26-35 record and made the playoffs in 2020 despite going 7-9 that year. It's likely that he'll be looking for a new job at the end of this year as the Commanders currently sit at 4-8. 

Matt Rhule

Fitterer and Matt Rhule followed up Rivera's reign in the 2020 season.

Rhule was a widely respected college football coach - who made a name for himself by turning Temple University's program into a short-lived national success before leading a recovering Baylor Bears team to an 11-3 record and the Sugar Bowl in 2019.

His hire was praised at the time, but very quickly his reputation started to sour in the pro ranks.

Rhule had back-to-back seasons of just five wins in 2020 and 2021 as the Panthers tried to find their footing as the team continued to struggle without a franchise quarterback like they had in Cam Newton up to 2018.

Teddy Bridgewater did not live up to that expectation in 2020, Sam Darnold wasn't successful in 2021, and Baker Mayfield got cut in 2022 after being traded there from Cleveland.

Five games of futility was all that Tepper needed to sack Rhule - one of the earliest coach firings in NFL history.

These days, Rhule is back to doing what he does best: resuscitating college football teams, this time at Nebraska.

Miguel Angel Ramirez

Charlotte FC made Miguel Angel Ramirez their first head coach in July of 2021, before the team even played its first game. He was fired just 14 matches into the team's inaugural season in 2022.

The firing came at an incredibly awkward time - with Charlotte in eighth place in MLS's Eastern Conference and in fighting position for a playoff spot.

But all was not what it seemed behind the locker room doors. Team captain and former Leicester City title winner Christian Fuchs pointed to 'fractures' within the team between coach and players.

He told local CBS affiliate WBTV that he tried addressing the issues with Ramirez, but too often, 'the door was shut and that didn't feel good'. Fuchs also noted that the gaffer hardly ever did a post-match analysis with the team, despite it being young and still building group chemistry.

Ramirez is coaching Sporting Gijon in his native Spain. 

Christian Lattanzio

With Ramirez gone and the team needing a leader, assistant coach Christian Lattanzio took over on an interim basis for the remainder of the 2022 season. His interim tag was dropped before the 2023 campaign.

It was a tough ride in 2023 for Charlotte FC - one highlighted at the beginning by the tragic passing of Anton Walkes and then highlighted at the end by the club's first playoff appearance.

Charlotte dropped 25 points from a winning position in this past MLS season and over-tinkering with the lineup may have contributed to a myriad of issues.

In that Wild Card appearance, the team was thrashed 5-2 by the New York Red Bulls and while Charlotte came out swinging for the second half, they couldn't keep up.

After taking a wider look at the future of the team, Lattanzio was sacked in the first week of November. Charlotte will now look for its third head coach in three seasons.