David Tepper reflects on long-term lessons of "exhaustive" GM search

[Sir Purr]

The late Al Davis would routinely use coaching vacancies as chances to poke around in the closets of his division rivals. And it's no accident the early stages of the Panthers' recent search included a number of personnel men with Patriots ties, among other top organizations such as the Seahawks and Chiefs. But Tepper also met with candidates from a variety of backgrounds and demographics, from 30-something caps-and-contracts guys to veteran evaluators in their 50s, with Super Bowl rings.


Tepper said there were another 10 to 15 candidates he did voluminous research on, who ultimately did not interview for the job.


He also pointed out that interviewing for a GM vacancy was more complicated than hiring a coach. Coaches have records, and results of individual games on the backs of their football cards. With personnel men, it's hard to know how much authority they had in their team's construction, so it's harder to figure out who gets credit for what.


"This was weeks of my life. This wasn't like 15 hours of talking to people (on a videoconference)," he said. "When I say it was exhaustive, I'm not just saying it; it was a fact. And I wasn't the only one talking to people. Drummond was talking to people. Matt talked to people.


"This was not getting five names from some headhunter and talking to them. We did the research ourselves, . . . the work was put in."


Tepper hopes that going through that kind of process yields a positive result, as he's firm in the belief that Fitterer will provide the perfect counterpoint to Rhule. But as important is the fact that he was the main decision-maker. Owning the building conveys a certain authority, but now he absolutely has ownership of the football product on the field.


"Everything's my fault at the end of the day because my name's on the door," Tepper said. "But now it's truly my names and my guys in the building. So now it's on me. And now if I messed up, then I messed up, it's on me.


"For me, I had to get a certain amount of knowledge, so that in my own mind, I was making the right decisions. Hopefully I made the right decisions."