CHARLOTTE, NC – The Carolina Panthers expect Scott Fitterer to do for them what he helped the Seattle Seahawks do after the 2013 season.
Win a Super Bowl.
Seattle’s 47-year-old vice president of football operations was offered the job of general manager of Panthers on Thursday, the team announced.
He was chosen from three other finalists, Kansas City Chiefs assistant director Ryan Poles (35), San Francisco 49ers vice president Adam Peters (41), and Tennessee Titans vice president Monti Ossenfort ( 42).
Fitterer was a late addition to the research, but according to sources, it quickly impressed the research panel.
Carolina interviewed 15 candidates in total to replace Marty Hurney, who was fired with two remaining games in a season 5-11 of 2020. Among them were two internal candidates, the director of player negotiations and the salary cap manager Samir Suleiman and the personnel director of players Pat Stewart.
Each of the finalists fits the job description of being relatively young with a strong scouting experience to work in collaboration with coach Matt Rhule to identify talents. Owner David Tepper was also looking for a data-driven general manager.
Rhule will have the final decisions on the 53-player roster, according to sources with knowledge of the signing, similar to what Andy Reid did with Kansas City and Bill Belichick did with the New England Patriots.
However, NFL Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian has warned against taking this too seriously.
“This is very, very, very exaggerated, ” said Polian, who helped Indianapolis win a Super Bowl during the 2006 season and built a Buffalo roster that reached four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s.” An effort between the GM and the boss The coach and coaching staff must obtain the best 53 players and, if there are problems, it is almost always decided in favor of the head coach. He has to go and play.
“I have only had two situations in my entire career, and in both cases it was the way the coach wanted. ”
Fitterer has been in Seattle since 2001, initially as an area scout. He moved up the chain to his current position, where he worked closely with general manager John Schneider to turn the Seahawks into a perennial playoff team.
Fitterer has been interviewed for several general manager jobs in the league in recent years. In his first four years as director of university scouts, he selected 13 players who became regulars.
Fitterer was a two-sport athlete in college, playing as a defender and pitching at UCLA and LSU. He spent three years in the Toronto Blue Jays minor league system before turning to football as a part-time scout for the New York Giants in 1998.