Panthers Reacts Results: No clear favorite among top head coach options

“offensive background” the only clear winner

This week we narrowed down the Carolina Panthers options in their head coach search to three top options and then polled y’all, the general reading public, to see who your favorite was. The winnowing basically selected the top prospect in each major candidate archetype: the successful retread, the hotshot offensive coordinator, and the rising star defensive coordinator. That brought us to University of Michigan and former San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh, Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, and Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero.

Everybody and their sports illiterate mothers know that the Panthers top target is Johnson, but that doesn’t mean that fans want who David Tepper wants. In fact, y’all are pretty evenly split between Johnson and Harbaugh out of these three candidates.

Johnson obviously leads the way with 43% of the vote, but Harbaugh is hot on his heels with 40%. Panthers fans have been in the mood for an actual, innovative offensive mind in a leadership position with this team since Mike Shula wasted Cam Newton’s career at the direction of ol’ stick-in-the-mud Ron Rivera. We thought we might be getting that evolution with snake oil salesman Matt Rhule and then we fell for it again with stouter-stick-in-stickier-mud Frank Reich. Johnson and Harbaugh, however, are the real deal and would bring a true breath of fresh air to the Carolinas.

Johnson’s air would be fresher, while Harbaugh’s would guarantee a more distinctive culture. I imagine the vote here was split along which of those breezes our fans find more palatable.

I’ll also give props to Evero for a respectable 17% of the vote. I’d guess the number for “would you mind Evero as the next coach” would fall somewhere closer to 60 to 80% in favor. Evero has made a strong name for himself in a less sexy position (defensive coordinator). He’ll get hired somewhere in the next year or two and, odds are, make that where into a competitive, respectable team.

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