On Monday morning, the Panthers fired GM Marty Hurney. Apparently, the Panthers wanted to get a jump on their GM search and didn’t want to wait another week. 
“I think sometimes you just need a restart, a refresh,” owner David Tepper said. “We did it last year on the coaching side. Maybe you could say it should have been done before on the GM side. Maybe it should have been. I’m sure people may say that, or otherwise, on both sides. I think it’s just time, on both sides, to do that. It just seems like the right time to move forward.”
Hurney first joined the Panthers in 1998 as the team’s director of football administration. The Panthers reached the Super Bowl in 2003 with Hurney in the front office and he was widely credited for helping to build the team that reached the Super Bowl in 2015. Hurney was fired in 2012, before that second SB appearance, but he was brought back in 2017 after the firing of Dave Gettleman.
This time around, Hurney got the axe just before the conclusion of a disappointing season. Things might have been different with a healthy Christian McCaffrey, and Tepper notes that the Panthers were the victim of some close losses.
“This team could easily have another four wins,” Tepper said. “The eight games that we had the ball last to win or tie — seven to win, one to tie — if you win four of those games, you’re in a totally different position right now with this young team. So looking at next year, I’m very hopeful where we will be and what we will do.”
The Panthers are now the fifth team in the NFL with a GM vacancy, joining the Falcons, Jaguars, Lions, and Texans.
Did okay job on drafting, but whiffed on finding a backup QB to develop.
Lol you complaining about whiffing on a backup QB? Look around the NFL and the number of guys you never heard of that had to start this season. That’s a weak reason
Panthers if they had some brains should try lose the last games of the season in order to try get a better pick. Which could potentially mean they pick around 4th/5th area.
That means they could potentially end up with 1 of the top 3 QBs. Lawrence will be gone, meaning they could have either Wilson or Fields. Either QB wouldn’t have pressure to preform straight away with Bridgewater on the roster and able to start. You could potentially trade away Bridgewater for a team in need of a QB otherwise Fields would be a great fit under Matt Rhule. Any QB that ends up in Carolina will be lucky to get the games best RB and a decent reviving core with DJ Moore and Robby Anderson.
They currently have 4 wins equal for 4th worst record tied with the Falcons and Eagles.
Bengals won’t take a QB meaning a too QB will fall to 4, Eagles if they have 4 probably don’t take a QB either.
Hurney was never great, never outright terrible, but it was pretty common knowledge that Tepper wanted his own guys in the franchise. Hurney was hired originally on an interim basis after Gettleman’s departure due to his close ties to Jerry Richardson, who had fired Hurney himself years before.
I don’t necessarily disagree with firing Hurney, whom we all knew was on the way out after Rivera was fired. He was kept around to have an experienced hand during the transition to Tepper’s new regime, and now that Rhule is in place, Hurney is out. I do however have had a pretty bad read on Tepper’s firmness in directing the franchise. His comments and decisions have made it pretty clear that he is going to be extremely involved in the decision making; I cannot think of a way that that would make me comfortable as a fan. More importantly, whatever GM he hires will have to be comfortable working for a very hands on owner.
I can just hope that Tepper realizes that “analytics” is a general empirically based methodology and not a magic solution to winning games. If he just wants someone to compile statistics and percentages for players or schemes he doesn’t need a GM. There are plenty of firms that do that. Tepper will have to have someone with football knowledge as well, which might make him antsy because it’s something he does not understand, and be comfortable letting him/her make decisions.
This seems short-sighted, They drafted all defense, and should’ve know that was not going to work out in year 1.
Between this and the Rivera firing, it really feels like Tepper wants to control the team.