Well, that's fun. The Panthers lost to the Seahawks 31-17 last night, ending their season, and returned to this note in their locker room. Season's over, folks. If you want to keep your jersey and helmet, let us know so we can deduct it from your paycheck.I'm sure it's a pain in the ass to replace equipment and teams probably don't want to just give things away, but now seems like as good a time as any to reacquaint ourselves with Panthers owner Jerry Richardson. The Panthers owner was one of the most aggressive owners in the 2011 lockout and reportedly questioned the intelligence of two of the NFL's highest-profile quarterbacks during meetings between the two sides that were cordial until he opened his mouth. He took on Peyton Manning:Note inside Panthers locker room to players on the white board. pic.twitter.com/8KQPho49lr
- Steve Reed (@SteveReedAP) January 11, 2015
And was otherwise a cantankerous dick:Apparently, Richardson was particularly sarcastic when Manning started to talk about players' safety. At one point, Richardson evidently said, "What do you know about player safety?"
This is all by way of saying: it makes all the sense in the world that the guy who felt like he needed to "take back our league" from players represented by a weak-ass union, playing on non-guaranteed contracts, and subject to the unilateral rule of one ginger Napoleon would want to nickel and dime his own players for their used equipment.Among other things, Richardson became so angry at Sean Morey after the recently retired player cited a slew of statistics on player safety and average career length that the Panthers' owner snapped, "You guys made so much [expletive] money - if you played three years in the NFL, you should own your own [expletive] team."