times in a very public way. Um, had a conversation with the coach this morning. It was short cordial. He's a gentleman, a true gentleman. Um, I then had a conversation with steve Wilks and named him interim coach and have that conversation and um, and uh, with that, I'll take questions. We'll start with, they talked before about one to build a long term sustainable winner ultimately. Why did you choose to make this decision today as opposed to at any point previously like this all season? Look, there's uh, numerous reasons why you make a decision like that ultimately. I felt this was a time now is the time good job Dave Matt has expressed at various times as you have, trying to find the quarterback trying to find the franchise quarterback appears that search is still ongoing. How much of that responsibility do you bear? Look, ultimately, um, I'm the head of the organization and ultimately, I always repair responsibility. I'm not the people, I'm not the person that makes those decisions. I'm brought into those decisions. Um, Listen, we will find, and we and we may have that person right now, but I believe we will have that person eventually. Well, going forward to find the next head coach, assuming that you'll leave that will scott be part of that drug be part of that that process. Listen, we're far away from that right now right now. We just, we have a lot of season left? I'd rather talk about the season left right now, steve Wilks is a coach? Let's go Mr temper Speaking of this? What does the rest of this season look like as an evaluation period for steve and do you see him as a candidate, potentially for the big job next season? Um, there's a lot of season left and we'll see how the season goes. Um, ultimately he's, you know, in a position to be in consideration for that position. I had a talk with steve, no promises were made and uh, but obviously if he does an incredible job, he's have to be in consideration for that. Uh, how much did, what happened yesterday matter to you in terms of your timing the fire matt, real chance. The fact that there were so many 40 niners fans here and the 22 point loss. Um, listen, as I said, there's numerous reasons, uh, why you, you know, make a decision. Um, there might have been a little bit of loss of intensity on the field yesterday, I would say that's probably evident versus the first four games. Um, you know, listen, I have great respect for the fans and I do hear the fans, but ultimately those that can't be a reason why you make a change like this, but again, there's numerous reasons why you make a change like this and they've back in, I think in the paper where you said this could take five, maybe six years to get turned around what's happened in between there that make you feel like that matt couldn't be the guy to turn it around. Um look again, a lot of different, you know, a lot of time has, you know, um past here, we, you know, we have the record, we have and uh you know, again, there's different reasons that go into that. Um you know, I think that there has been progress um of some sort, but that we're just not getting over the hump um and we got to get over the hump received books specifically. Why was he named inter paper? Look, it's good to have somebody internally that's familiar with the team and you know, with the people in the building, so to speak. Um steve is a leader of men, he has experience as a head coach. Um um and I thought he's the best candidate, you know, in the building for that role, we're going to film. What's your message to fans? You mentioned the fans. Do you have a message for them? It may feel like this thing maybe wasn't moving in the right direction. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Do you have a message to the fans who may be felt the franchise wasn't moving in the right direction after this move. Um Look, you know, football is a funny, you know, funny business things, take time and um you know, as as as a as a former fan. I don't want to hear that. I want to answer, I want to win today and I don't care about anything else and I understand that and I want to win too, but I do think we have made some progress and we will have, we will make future progress. I think uh it's pretty reported out there, that defense is, you know, has some respect for the defense, it's probably a top half of the league defense or better. I think the offensive line is probably the best offensive line we've had since I've been here, um couldn't get better, but I think that's probably fair to say. So I do think those are kind of foundation pieces. I think we have a lot further to go and I think eventually we'll get over the hump insight you have on the firing of Phil snow um tomorrow, I think you have a chance to talk to steve Wilks, I I did talk to steve before, you know, that he told me he was going to think about these a few different positions and um and that's always been purported reported out there. You should talk to steve walks tomorrow, given the state of the roster and the upcoming strength of schedule. What are your realistic expectations when it comes to steve Wilks, you expect him to get your team over the hump with this remaining season left. Look, I think we always have an expectation to win and trying to find a way to win and, you know, that's never changing. Um, steve is familiar with the team, you know, I have confidence in him and we'll see steve reed Dave, um how hard of a decision was this for you? I mean, you've been in Pittsburgh, you know, you've seen that they've had a lot of patients with head coaches and one of the things you preach was, you know, being patient, you know, taking time to how hard did that make this decision being that he was only here a little over two years, I think, you know, it's a, it's a funny thing, that thing called patients, um if you ask the average fan out there, they think I was ridiculously patient um on both these situations um here, um I think you have to show the right amount of patients and see the progress that's made, Are we winning more? Are we progressing in different ways? Um and I think in all those situations you spoke, you just spoke of, there has been that and I think unfortunately we haven't, like I said, got over that hump to win and I think that's, you know, that's what it is. Can you address the, the vast amount of empty seats that have been there the last few weeks, maybe half full? And just to clarify, are you saying steve Wilks that decided to fire up the snow and not you guys Just just, you know, listen, uh it's an interesting thing you say that, but because we have 63,000 people seat, you know, butts and seats now, unfortunately, there's too many red butts in seats this week. Um, that had, that was not again, the reason, you know, I, you know the reason a reason for that. As I said, we just can't get over the hump. And uh, that decided to get to let go, decided to let go or was that you and how did that come about? You'll have, that was basically usually a head coach gets to choose his coaching staff. Okay. And uh, you know, I was informed that he might want to make these changes and I wanted to give him some time to think about it. He thought about him, he did it. So you should talk to him tomorrow again. Mike k the majority of the Gm job is done during the off season. What what direction do you want scott to take as you focus on the rest of this season? Look, we have to be very careful about how we use our limited resources. We have 200 million, 200 plus million salary cap. We have how many draft choices we have. So we, we including me um extent, I'm involved at all. I have to be more diligent in how we do that given where the team is right now, is there a process to maybe get ahead of next year and make some moves. Listen, we're always thinking about what movies should be made and at this point in time it's, you know, it's a little premature to answer that question. I think we talked to you in the off season, you had the full support of matt in the offseason, understandably, at that time, what did you see in him at that point? That did not happen in the regular season, that you thought that he could get the job done to give him another another year. Um I thought flexibility in, in, in the staff and trying to upgrade the coaching staff at that point in time and having that sort of flexibility to see how that all worked out. Um again, I think there's been some improvements, that there's always some improvements, but not enough. We're obviously not getting over the hump. So, you know, that's the bottom line real quick. He had the final say quite a bit of a roster, that philosophy change going forward. I think it balances probably more appropriate between the head coach and the gm, better balance. Hi, you've mentioned the phrase getting over the hump several times. What does that look like to you and it's, it's winning, winning. Can you quantify that as far as the number of winning more this year than you did last year, have any parents are winning more than you did last year, looking like you're going to win more than you did last year, You know, by that definition? You know, I don't think we're over the hump, We started off 1-4 this year, we had five wins the last two seasons, you know, had a different lack of success in other seasons. So we have to, we have to somehow change that culture, see how we can change that culture and try to win and whatever that takes. We're gonna try to find that Two questions. One is your plan currently to move forward with Scott as GM in the 2023 and two, do you think there's something advantageous about having a GM and head coach both coming at the same time together? Um, you know, it's a little premature to ask those questions, you know, um squad is RGM, there's nothing no thought of mine right now right now my focus is is uh, as Wilkes and helping him have success in a new role. Let's go Alice Dave, you hired Matt rule about 33 months ago. What have you learned about building, of winning and sustaining sustainable product in that time period from them to now. Listen, I think that, you know, I think that as an organization, we have to maintain patients in roster building and and different positions and just a little bit more patients would be good and remembering all the time that we are in a limited resource business, we have the same amount of money to spend, has the next team, nobody has more, nobody has left. We have the same amount of draft picks as the next team. Nobody has more, nobody has less. We have to make sure we use that as, you know, as best we can and really, really consider that and strategically think about it, joe have you, How do you kind of reconcile the patient's message though, when you see other teams around the league having success earlier with newish coaches, get into the playoffs, You know, it's funny, I get asked, you know, you just asked that question and being too patient and somebody said, you're not patient enough. And I said, it's, you know, it's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Um, and that's kind of, you know, where I am, you know where I am, you have to show enough patients to see how things work out and ultimately are you getting over the, are you winning enough? I mean, that's the bottom line here is the bottom line, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, that's the way it is, fans care about your winning, you know, and, and quite frankly, that's why we're all here, we're not in here to do anything but try to win games. And if we're not winning games, is there something else that matters? And look, I mean, you have to be patient enough to see what develops and how it develops to see to give things enough time. And that was your saying, did you give it too much time, other person just asked did you give it enough time, you know? So yeah, I think it's it's a balancing act and I, you know, I tried to, you know, balance it both ways. Would you do a seven year contract again? Um, I don't really want to talk about contracts, you know, one way or another. But um listen, it's probably in a lot of, in a lot of things in this game, it probably probably might make more sense to be more conforming in some ways. On the other hand, look, it's about taking chances and taking risks sometimes in life. Sometimes you, you know, things work out sometimes you learn from those risks. So if you don't take chances, don't take risks. You don't win usually. Okay, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you know, any individual risk we take on the field, depending if it's smart, really smart and not smart risk. So, um, and you learn, so, look, I mean, just in general and I'll say this, this is, you know, four years in this business, two years during covid. Um, I'm still learning quite frankly, you know, we had dinner with some owner, they've been their families in the business for 40 years. Okay, I'm going to be humble enough to say that it's a big difference from being in the seat of a fan or being up here and you're trying to balance. You just gave the question about patients both ways. You try to balance it and try to learn from your mistakes and hopefully we're smart enough to do that. Did you, do you think that matt's transition from college? We had success to pro had anything to do with his struggles to win. And would you consider a college coach to be your next head coach? So look again, it's premature. Uh, to answer that question, I'd like to see what steve Wilks does, just quite frankly, um, you know, so, um, I'm not gonna generally roll that out. On the other hand, you know, there is a history of successful coaches in the NFL, you can go look it up, every fan can go look it up and see what it is, I'm aware of what that is and I have to be cognizant and pay attention to that. Dave, you mentioned your expectations for the rest of this season, season ended right now. This team would pick first overall in next year's draft and that's where quarterbacks are taken. How do you balance the present versus the future in terms of what you want to see from this team? What I'm trying to understand your question exactly more important to win now or be in position to draft a quarterback next year's draft. Okay, if that's your question, listen, there's no, no, no way that every day you can't go in with a winning attitude and there's no other way to be. You have to try to win all the time. You have to try to win for the players, You have to try to win for the fans and yes, I understand what it is about draft picks and getting quarterbacks and stuff like that. I understand the importance of quarterbacks in this league, but you have to try to win always Phil and dave what you learn from the last coaching search that you can take into this, you mentioned education and kind of learning as you go. Um Look, I think that there's some things different we would do in the process in general, as far as consultants and such like that in that in that search. But again, it's premature to ask that question. So, you know, in terms of interaction with players, do you have any or was there any type of, I guess counseling from other players leadership group or anything like that in what regard? Not really. Alright, let's see this, let's go steve dave obviously there's a trade deadline coming up. Um I guess my question to you is do you feel like this team needs to be rebuilt? I mean would would it be popular? Do you feel like you guys need to maybe, you know, send trying to trade some of the veteran guys getting draft picks and build for the future. Do you feel like this thing needs to be rebuilt or do you feel like you're just still a few pieces away? I think that we have to figure out how to get a culture of winning here. Okay. Which we haven't had a long time in this place and as I said at some point we never have won this town. This team has never had two winning seasons, so I don't really think it ever had a real culture of winning. So how do you develop that culture of winning, you know, with between you know players coaches and arrest and, and look like I said, you have to before you have to understand the resources you have and try to get the best resource sources you have. So that's the question. Looking over the roster you have right now, trying to figure out how you can have the best roster in the future. You know, the areas of strength, you know, the, you know, some areas of witnesses, there are a lot of good areas of strength on this roster right now and I think that they're better than they were a few years ago, but we have to put it together and we have to, I hate to repeat myself again, have to get over the hump and have to figure out how to learn how to win all the time. He said when you bought this team though, you had to change the culture and now in three years had two different head coaches, you got the fire in season and then beyond that, a soccer coach, you had to fire. So what is the culture right now of your organization and your group and um look, I do. I think that we have a pretty good culture in some respects, in the building. I think we have to be confident in ourselves. I think we have to realize we have a lot of good, good players on this roster, A lot of good players that we can win with and they have to have confidence in themselves to know, um, that they can do that. And it's accountability. Listen, I'm accountable, I'm accountable to the fans. Everybody is accountable. You guys are accountable in your own jobs. The players are accountable on the field for their positions. Everybody has to be held accountable and realize there's no place to hide. Okay. There's no place to hide in this sport. Everybody knows what's going on. Everybody sees how everybody's playing and everybody has to know that and play to their best, you know, that their best of their ability, we have to just, you know, do better instilling that and instilling the to winning. You know, we'll get there. Mr. Tepper since you took over the teams that four head coaches when you inherited two interims. Now, Two general managers when you inherited three team presidents of $800 million. Practice practice facility that sits dormant. I am wondering what is the reason for the turnover and lack of follow through that has been shown under your ownership. Um, you know, can you be more specific about what you're asking because you asked a lot of questions there? Okay. You're talking about that. You're asking about the head coach and I address that head coach and the interim head coach is okay. And then your next question is what Different three team presidents, Two general managers and $800 million dollars practice practice facility that sits dormant. I am wondering what is the reason or largest cause for the turnover in leadership positions and the lack of follow through in terms of rocket? Um, I think that, uh, you know, as I just went through the, uh, I went through the, the coaches before. I think as far as, uh, you know, uh, presidents have been different, various reasons that we've moved on from different people and that's respect and, you know, in this, in this organization, just as an aside away from football and there's four years to covid years. We brought in besides football, we brought in a soccer team that is setting records okay. And bringing 34,000 and revitalizing the city. We brought music back, not back to charlotte. There never was music in charlotte. You know, with concerts we brought, we, we reopened restaurants because of what we've done here. So if you look at what's really been done on the field on the field by this organization, there's been no lack of progress in these four years to covid years. Okay. So you want to look at the results. Okay. So he's also in the business, we've won and we've won. You know, the place, we're not, you know, we would do better on the football field. You know, in the future. Can you talk about the conversation you had with steve? You know about when he went to high school here, went to college here. Was he overly excited? Was he was tapping? Like, what was his reaction when you had that conversation with him? Listen, steve is a loves this area. Love charlotte. Um, so if you're somebody who loves this area loves charlotte, of course you're going to be a little bit excited. Obviously, question for steve though. So you should ask the question tomorrow. Dave. This is just a timeline question. But did you wake up this morning and decide to do this? Did you know last night? I just wonder what your own decision process was here scott. I read your column. Okay. You know better. Okay. Every, every day, every, you know, this is an everyday thinking about things, how we can be better. What should we do? When is the right time when it's not the right time? And I said there's numerous factors that go into it. I answered that question before. You know, you, there's a tipping point that gets reached. It just so happened. We got to the tipping point and I think you understand that, you know, uh, you want, you can actually, you know, I shouldn't say that, but I actually read your columns and I can go back to your columns and regurgitate them so you can read your own columns. Okay. For that answer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mhm. Thank you guys so much.