Just last year, Adrian Wilson was on the short list of candidates to take over as the Cardinals’ permanent general manager. While he did not get the gig, he landed on his feet as the Panthers’ vice president of player personnel. After one year in that position, Wilson is again in search of a new employer.
Carolina never made a public announcement on the matter, but as a team spokesperson told Pro Football Talk this morning, “Adrian Wilson will not continue in his position as Vice President of Player Personnel for the Carolina Panthers. Consistent with our organizational policy on employee matters, we will have no further comment” (via PFT’s Mike Florio).
Of course, 2023 was hardly a banner year for the Panthers. The club’s 2-15 record was disappointing in and of itself, and the pronounced struggles of rookie quarterback Bryce Young made matters worse. Adding insult to injury was the fact that Carolina’s league-worst W-L mark would have entitled the team to the top selection in this year’s draft, but the Panthers had already traded that pick to the Bears as part of the package to acquire the No. 1 overall choice in the 2023 draft, which they used to select Young.
Given the Panthers’ forgettable season and the fact that GM Scott Fitterer was fired in January, it is not surprising that Wilson, one of Fitterer’s top lieutenants, is no longer with the team either. However, since owner David Tepper opted to replace Fitterer internally by promoting assistant GM Dan Morgan to the top job, it was reasonable to think that Wilson would remain on the staff and assist Morgan in trying to right the ship.
It is unclear whether Wilson moved on voluntarily or was dismissed. In either case, and fairly or not, Wilson’s departure will likely be seen as another failure of the Tepper regime. After all, if Wilson left on his own, it could reinforce the notion that Tepper is a difficult boss who fosters an untenable working environment; if Wilson was fired, it will add to Tepper’s reputation as an impatient and impulsive owner. As Florio wrote, “from David Tepper’s football team to his soccer team, the hinge on the swinging door never has much of a chance to get rusty.”
Wilson, a longtime Cardinals safety and five-time Pro Bowler, started working as a regional scout for Arizona in 2015. He ascended the executive ladder fairly quickly, and he and Quentin Harris ended the 2022 season sharing the Cardinals’ GM duties after Steve Keim took an indefinite leave of absence. Wilson had interviewed for the Giants’ GM post the previous offseason and was reportedly in line to take over as Jaguars GM the same year if Jacksonville had hired Byron Leftwich as their head coach.
Now 44, Wilson will surely land another high-ranking position in the near future, though his stint in Carolina stalled his upward trajectory.
Cards, Panthers, Raiders, Jags, Jets, & all the other continually losing franchises have 1 distinct characteristic; they can’t fire their owners. Always starts at the top, in any business.
Raiders? Interim coach got the permanent nod cos his team went all-out for him — and he grew up a Raiders fan.
Jaguars? Win-and-in going into Week 18, plus their head coach famously won a Super Bowl.
Jets? Top-flight defense — and they ended the career of Bill Belichick.
Moral: Stop being brainwashed by TV and talk radio.
Mark Davis took over ownership in 2011. Since then, the Raiders have a 82-130 record w/ only 2 winning seasons.
Even worse than Mark’s record is Shad. Took over in 2012. The Jags record under his watch is 60-135.
Moral: Pay attention to the game.
And the Dallas Cowboys have not participated in a Super Bowl for nearly 30 years.
Chart numbers are for dumb people.
And Jerry has 3 SB rings as an owner. How many do Shad and Mark have combined w/ around combined 20 some years of ownership?
Speaking, I see that you didn’t knock back against Jets ownership. Another poorly run franchise that has suckers like you throwing money at it every year hoping ‘This is the year!’
Lol…The irony of sticking up for the Cowboys, and then talking about another fanbase every year saying “this is the year.”
You are aware that’s precisely what Cowboys fan’s are known and made fun of for, correct?
I am and I’m fully aware that Jerry has 3 rings from the heydays of the 90’s. Again, how many COMBINED rings do the owners of the teams I listed; Cards, Jags, Jets, Panthers, Raiders have? That’s decades of ownership w/o 1 ring vs Jerry’s 3.
Jerry rightfully is a HoF’er. He done more greatness for the league, players (salaries), and franchises (overall value) than any other owner over the past 30 some years.
Tepper might be the worst owner in American sports now that the Angelos’ sold the Orioles.
The Panthers were highly regarded around the league before Tepper acquired the club. Letting such a lucrative franchise, in a fast-growing region, go to rot is what’s driving Carolinians away.
BTW baseball is not the NFL.
Baseball is not the NFL? No kidding. What is the point of that statement? I said worst “in American sports.”
I can raise a Oakland Athletics’ John Fisher as candidate for “worst owner in American sports” too
We should have an election.
Can’t believe I forgot Fisher. Gores of the Pistons is petty bad, too. The old Arizona Coyotes owner was terrible but he’s done for now.
Very short, terse statement. I take it that the “parting of ways” was not amicable.
Honestly, in this case, it’s probably a good thing. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Wilson can do as a decision maker in football after a strong career as a player. Tepper probably isn’t the owner to grow your own wings under. It still kind of amazes me that someone who isn’t a dullard can see all of the headlines and commentary about him and still not consider changing his approach, but I also don’t know the guy, so I could be mistaken. Morgan seems to have been able to have his own voice so far, so we’ll see if it lasts. I hope Wilson, for his part, lands on his feet so we can see where he ultimately ends up and has a chance for advancement.
I don’t think there is the slightest chance of someone being an effective leader if they change their approach every time some headline or commentator expresses some criticism. This applies to non dullards as well as Tepper.
Well, the alternative is not adapting if there is a problem. You have to do what’s effective, no matter whose idea it was. I agree that good leaders need to be consistent and confident, but they can quickly become poor leaders if they refuse to change when it’s necessary.
I think adapting from those things that have been very successful for you in the past is extremely difficult. We saw that happen to Al Davis towards the end and Belichick was also guilty of trying to re-invent the past during his final years in hopes of reclaiming past glory.
Agreed on the difficulty. People commonly think that it’s impossible to change who you are-it isn’t. It is extremely difficult, though, because it takes not only restraint, but continued commitment.
For Tepper, nothing has been successful football-wise. It’s time that he understood that, or the loss and bad press will continue. If you want to change the narrative, change the narrative-at least, that’s what I would strongly suggest to him if he were here.
The Panthers had one of the worst rosters in the NFL last year – and will seemingly be little improved in 2024. The fault for this lies with the GM and player personnel staff. Tepper is clearly a less than ideal owner, but he isn’t evaluating talent.
I think the problem with that franchise continues to be that Tepper IS “evaluating talent”.
I dunno, I think that he was extremely involved last year. Maybe Tepper didn’t identify individual players, but he probably gave instructions to Fitterer that may or may not have been ideal, or may or may not have been difficult to carry out. Owners also can set a general environment of limitation; they can possibly do the opposite of expecting the unnecessary. If a GM feels that he needs to cater to or tip-toe around his owner, there could be an effect on his decision making or the urgency he may feel in doing so.
Of course, I do think that you have a point in evaluating Fitterer’s (short) tenure. He hasn’t given us anything other than some theoretical excuses to stick up for him. Morgan began his tenure handicapped by the prior regime, which why Burns was traded for a pittance. Obviously he wasn’t going to commit massive money to a single player during a long rebuild; or, perhaps, if he were, it wouldn’t be one who held the team hostage with amount of franchise crushing leverage that Burns acquired from the poor handling of his situation. I think that Morgan could have gotten more for Burns (not as much as the Rams offered, because after that denial every team in the league knew that the Panthers were stuck) and that Giants article confirms that. I think that he just wanted that situation done with and out of the way-unless Tepper changed his mind on Burns and told him to just do it, which I could believe.
Outside of Burns, Morgan’s added two very important receivers for Young, and probably the best back in an admittedly sparse draft at the position in Brooks. One other knock that I had on Fitterer is related; he let Foreman walk after being by far their best back, and did so for a pittance. Chicago got good work out of him when they finally realized put him out there. Carolina did lose Jackson at corner, but he unfortunately was not the same after his injury and they were going to have to hope for a healthy year from Horn (who is great when he’s available) as a number one or two. On offense, I think that they’ve improved, but there is a long, long way to go.
Jewell should help Evero implement his defense after a year with some ups and downs, and despite losing Burns, he’s going to use this year to try and get scheme more installed according to his liking. The Broncos had more than the Panthers across the board when Evero took over (like Jewell, but mostly in the secondary and a bunch of youthful edge rushers to swap out), so he’ll have to work hard at installing the defense correctly, and the Panthers will have to find a replacement for Burns and fill a lot of spots using the money that he would have taken.
I anticipate that Morgan’s plan right now is to use that potential Burns money next year after he sees which holes are the most critical that he doesn’t anticipate filling in the draft. It’s going to be a multi-year process, but I also think that he wants to do it more quickly than traditional rebuilds, because Young essentially lost a year on his rookie deal, and Morgan didn’t get to be in charge during the setting of the foundation (plus, his boss isn’t exactly patient). I think that’s why he signed Johnson as a free agent instead of giving Mingo a chance to fill that spot without competition, and why he went ahead and drafted a back this year instead of next year after establishing the line and Young. Or maybe Canalis simply requested these things, and ownership/management listened to their new coach. We’ll have to see if they continue to do so, but I think that this year the offense has improved. The defense will probably be a work in progress, unless Evero getting more comfortable in his scheme can compensate for the loss in talent pressure-wise (which, to be fair, was Evero’s strength in Denver).
When he got this news,
All Rocky Balboa could say was,
“ADRIAN!!”