Panthers owner David Tepper chose football over politics by signing Eric Reid

The Carolina Panthers signed safety Eric Reid on Thursday in a move that was purely football based, and never would have happened in team history until this year.

Reid fills an immediate need for the Panthers’ secondary which has been woeful in the team’s first three games. Da’Norris Searcy was lost for the season and special teams player Colin Jones struggled in his role as a starter. But Reid’s signing means more, as he immediately becomes the team’s best safety since Mike Minter retired in 2006.

Everything comes back to David Tepper, who bought the Panthers this year after Jerry Richardson sold the team in disgrace following claims of sexual harassment in the workplace. It ended an era of fealty in Charlotte where the Panthers would bend the knee for the NFL at every opportunity, often in spite of football decisions.

Richardson’s loyalty to the NFL was born from playing in the league, which earned him the money to start businesses, which snowballed into owning an NFL franchise. But as the league grew more problematic with how it dealt with social issues, CTE and the NFLPA, Richardson’s loyalty rose to match it. That came to a head during CBA negotiations in 2011 when he infamously disrespected Peyton Manning and Drew Brees at the negotiating table, which helped brand the Panthers as an undesirable place for free agents.

Eric Reid, who has an outstanding collusion lawsuit against the NFL for blackballing him, likely never would have been signed by Richardson due to this same loyalty — even if it meant watching his team suffer on the field. The Panthers were one of the last teams to make a public statement about Trump’s comments about the protests in the NFL, and when they did Richardson made a statement about how “politicizing the game,” was damaging to the NFL.

In a few short months Tepper has sought to erase much of the cross-branding between the NFL and the Panthers. He sided with fans who clamored for years asking for the NFL shield to be removed from center field of Bank of America Stadium, and replaced it with the Panthers logo. So encompassing is Tepper’s desire to usher in a new era that Richardson ensured there was a clause in the sale contract of the team to prevent his own statue being removed to preserve his presence over the team.

Tepper has been critical of President Trump, calling him the “father of lies” in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and at the beginning of the season Tepper publicly supported players who decided to protest, telling CNBC:

“These are some of the most patriotic people and best people. These are great young men. So to say that [they aren’t patriotic] makes me so aggravated and angry. It’s just wrong, it’s dead wrong.”

But it should be noted that he was a part of the ownership group that approved the league’s national anthem policy during the offseason which was designed at least in part to stop criticism from the president over players kneeling in protest during the anthem.

In the end, when it came time for the Panthers to make a football decision, Tepper did it. He empowered general manager Marty Hurty to sign the most talented safety available and make his team better for it. In choosing football over politics he made the Carolina Panthers better, while also showing how different this team has become in a very short period of time.