Gerber: David Tepper isn't quite the 'new Dan Snyder,' but the resemblance is striking

By Clark Gerber, WRAL Sports contributor

Charlotte, N.C. — I'm not surprised.

And no, I'm not talking about the Carolina Panthers' 26-0 loss to Jacksonville. Although that was probably a little predictable too.

I'm talking, of course, about DrinkGate.

Panthers owner David Tepper was caught on cell phone video Sunday, tossing his drink out an open suite window and onto Jaguars fans below.

It should be shocking to see an NFL owner behaving this way. But in this case, not really.

In less than six years on the job, Tepper has already built such a bad reputation for himself that he's being called "the new Dan Snyder" of the NFL. That's not a compliment.

To be fair, I think the new nickname is a bit harsh.

Snyder was fined $60 million for actual crimes and was an overall jerk for 24 years. Tepper was just fined $300,000 for a tantrum and has a long way to go before he can match Snyder's rap sheet.

With that said, however, there are several other striking similarities that simply can't be ignored after this latest incident ... and should have Panthers fans very concerned if they weren't already.

Petulance

That's the best word I can think of to describe David Tepper's actions this weekend.

He threw a fit in his luxury suite, dumped a drink on some opposing fans, then ran away and didn't address it for 48 hours. You know, like a 5-year old might do (minus the luxury suite).

As mentioned above, the NFL fined Tepper $300,000 on Wednesday -- basically pocket change for a man worth an estimated $20 billion -- and did not suspend him.

Rather than accept any responsibility and apologize, Tepper released a statement (which did not show up on any Panthers social media account) that read more like this: "My lawyers wrote this. I'm annoyed that I got fined."

Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of behavior that Washington fans came to expect while Dan Snyder was in charge.

In 2008, Snyder's team sued a 72-year old grandma who couldn't renew her season tickets during the recession. Then, in 2022, other season ticket holders accused Snyder of a scheme to cheat them out of their deposits.

He never apologized in either case. Sound familiar?

Impatience

Dan Snyder was never afraid to throw his money around as an NFL owner, which translated to a very short leash for his quarterbacks and head coaches.

Washington had eight head coaches and 28 starting quarterbacks during Snyder's 24-year reign, which seems like a lot until you look at Tepper's current pace.

The Panthers are already up to 10 different starting quarterbacks in six seasons: Cam Newton, Taylor Heinicke, Kyle Allen, Will Grier, Teddy Bridgewater, PJ Walker, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Andy Dalton and Bryce Young.

Whichever head coach Tepper hires this offseason will be his fourth, and that's just for football. He's also on his third head coach for Charlotte FC in soccer.

Yikes.

So much impatience doesn't allow for any consistency as you try to build a winning culture. That's something you hope that Tepper would have learned during his time as a Steelers minority owner, but alas.

The inconsistency and impatience might also scare off some of the more attractive head coaching candidates that the Panthers will be pursuing in the coming months. Time will tell on that one.

Dysfunction and meddling

Tepper's Panthers have a long way to go before they rise to the level of Washington's well-documented dysfunction under Dan Snyder. Let's hope we never get even close.

But when The Athletic publishes a massive report detailing your organization's "Hunger Games" culture, that's obviously not great either.

On the football side of things, another thing that Tepper and Snyder have in common is their propensity to meddle with personnel and coaching decisions.

Tepper reportedly strong-armed his staff into drafting Bryce Young over CJ Stroud this offseason, then got in front of the media and explained why Young didn't need any elite receivers to throw to.

I don't want to bury Bryce Young just yet, but early results have not been good.

Snyder put Washington in a very similar situation in 2019, when he reportedly clashed with then-head coach Jay Gruden about drafting the late Dwayne Haskins out of Ohio State.

That also didn't work.

I can't say I know much about being a successful NFL owner, but a common theme seems to be that the football decisions are left to the football staff.

Hopelessness

This is the bottom line because when your favorite team has a bad owner, you feel stuck.

You feel hopeless.

Dan Snyder's many shortcomings turned a once-proud franchise into a perennial loser in Washington. In 24 years, he saw only six winning seasons and two playoff wins.

The day he finally relented and sold the team was probably the franchise's biggest win in a quarter-century.

Well, we're less than six years into the David Tepper era, and Panthers fans are already counting down the days.

The team is 31-67 since Tepper arrived, with zero playoff berths, no DJ Moore, no #1 draft pick and now a very embarrassing incident that may define another lost season.

David Tepper shouldn't take his "new Dan Snyder" label as an insult. He should take it as a warning.

Because unless he changes a lot about how he runs the team (an actual apology would be a good place to start in this case), the Panthers could be headed for their own quarter-century of irrelevance.

And none of us should be surprised.