Firing JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson amid poor sales results would be an irresponsible move by its board, Brian McGough of Hedgeye Management said Thursday on CNBC.
"Who am I to go against Allen Questrom, right? He's the godfather of retail," he said. "But I think the fact of the matter is if this board wants to declare Chapter 11, I think probably the fastest route to get there is to fire Ron Johnson."
McGough's comments came a day after former JCPenney CEO Allen Questrom criticized the company's board of directors and chief executive.
"The board has to take action. They can't be delusional like Ron Johnson is," he said on CNBC. "This has been going on long enough. You can't say you're going to make your numbers for the year and then drop a billion dollars."
(Read More: JCP Board Can't Be 'Delusional': Ex-CEO)
On "Fast Money," McGough acknowledged that Johnson had made "a couple of really big bonehead moves" but added that getting rid of the former Apple retail executive was the wrong move.
"There's a couple of reasons why," he said. "The first is, if you bring in a new CEO, they have a couple of options. The first is to go back to being just about the worst retailer in America. That's not very attractive.
"Two, they could bring in another person to actually go along with Ron Johnson's plans, and that's not very attractive either.
"Three would be to have a person come in, shake that Etch-a-Sketch clean and start over, but unfortunately they don't have the kind of liquidity to do that."
McGough said that he believed the board must have expected "a sales disruption" along with changes, as well as lower revenues, at least temporarily.
"I think if the board were going to come out and if they were going get rid of him now based on what he did in Year One, then it would be a pretty irresponsible move by the board, and they should probably put their own resignation in as well," he added.
Trader disclosure: On March 7, 2013, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Stephanie Link is long AAPL; Stephanie Link is long GS; Stephanie Link is long CSCO; Stephanie Link is long SBUX; Stephanie Link is long FB; Pete Najarian is long AAPL; Pete Najarian is long C CALLS; Pete Najarian is long JPM CALLS; Pete Najarian is long CSCO CALLS; Pete Najarian is long YHOO ; Pete Najarian is long BBRY ; Pete Najarian is long SBUX; Pete Najarian is long FB; Pete Najarian is long MSFT; Pete Najarian is long DELL; Mike Murphy is long BAC; Mike Murphy is long FB; Mike Murphy is long TOL; Josh Brown is long AAPL; Josh Brown is long BAC; Josh Brown is long GS; Josh Brown is long GLD; Josh Brown is long TLT; Josh Brown is long XLF; Josh Brown is long WMT; Josh Brown is long TGT.
