We're only about 24 hours removed from Carolina Panthers' owner David Tepper firing head coach Frank Reich only eleven games into Reich's tenure, representing one of the shortest hooks we've seen in the long, long history of the NFL. The good news for Panthers fans is that Tepper knows what he wants out of his next head coach, per a tweet from Adam Schefter of ESPN. And let me tell you, it's really the only qualification that matters.

“I would like someone to be here 20, 30 years. I’d like to have someone say the eulogy at my funeral in 30 years. OK, maybe 40 years.”

This is arguably one of the funniest things I've ever heard a sports owner has ever said or done, and I'm confident that Tepper wasn't trying to crack a joke. This is far funnier than every Magic Johnson tweet about the Washington Commanders, and those tweets stop me in my tracks every time I see one of them.

Here are four reasons why this is hilarious.

  1. David Tepper has three children. Maybe they aren't on good terms, or maybe Tepper knows they aren't good public speakers, or maybe Tepper is planning on living so long that he anticipates all of his children will have died before him? I'm perplexed.
  2. David Tepper has fired three different head coaches in his time as the owner of the Carolina Panthers. If Tepper had owned the team since, say 1995, when they came into the league, this wouldn't be noteworthy at all. The problem here is that Tepper has owned the team since 2018. In five years, he's fired three coaches. Now all of the sudden we're supposed to expect that he's gonna hire a coach and keep him around for 40 years?
  3. Only one coach in NFL history has spent 40 years with one team, and that man was George Halas, who also happened to own the Chicago Bears franchise.
  4. David Tepper is 66 years old. Now I know that the average life expectancy has dropped ever so slightly during COVID times, but in general, the life expectancy in the U.S. has consistently gone up over the years. But again, David Tepper is 66, and he's hopeful that in 40 years the next coach he hires will give the eulogy at his funeral. That means David Tepper is planning to live to 106 years old, which is not unheard of, but my lord, it is bold. It also means that Tepper should probably hire a very young head coach. Is Sean McVay's son available?