Given the changes which were made on the Panthers’ sidelines yesterday, owner David Tepper was unsurprisingly asked about the job status of the team’s general manager. Given his remarks, front office changes will not be forthcoming. 
“Scott [Fitterer] is our GM,” Tepper said during the post-Matt Rhule firing press conference. “There’s no thought of mind right now. Right now, my focus is [on Steve] Wilks and how he can have success in his new role.”
Fitterer, 48, spent the bulk of his front office career in Seattle. Beginning there in 2001, he worked his way up to the role of VP of football operations by 2020. That landed him on the GM radar, and resulted in him being hired in 2021 to lead the Panthers’ front office.
That move, of course, came only one year after Rhule was hired to begin the team’s rebuild. His history at Temple and Baylor led to plenty of optimism that a turnaround would be possible, but his stay in Charlotte lasted less than three years. That stretch saw a number of moves made to find stability at the quarterback position, including trading for Baker Mayfield this offseason. That investment has not yielded anywhere near the desired results so far, and contributed to Rhule’s dismissal.
With the team sitting at 1-4 and lacking in draft capital, speculation abounds regarding the Panthers’ willingness to part ways with some of their valued assets. While it remains to be seen if Fitterer will execute any notable trades ahead of the deadline, Tepper noted that he will seek “better balance” between Fitterer and the team’s next permanent head coach with respect to roster decisions – in contrast to the substantial power Rhule was given through his seven-year, $62MM contract.
On the point of head coaches, Tepper also echoed reports from yesterday that Wilks will have the opportunity to earn the full-time role. The one-time Cardinals HC lacks the experience many believe the Panthers will seek in their search for Rhule’s replacement, but things could change between now and the offseason.
“Ultimately, he’s in a position to be in consideration for that position,” Tepper said of Wilks. “I had a talk with Steve. No promises were made, but obviously, if he does an incredible job, he’d have to be in consideration for that.”
I’m just hoping he doesn’t want the team to tank. I want to see Wilks get a fair shot at showing his coaching skills.
Wilks deserves a fair shot, but I don’t think there’s a fair shot to be had here. What can this team do but tank? They have Ben McAdoo leading an offense that was inept even before it had to turn to Darnold or Walker at QB.
Wilks isn’t a good HC and he will cry about his color and he was never given a fair chance. Look at the Atlanta Braves last year! It was there rebuilding year and they won the championship. Anything is possible, it all comes down to the coaching and if the players want to play for that coach.
He got one year as head coach, and going into that year, the team traded up to make Josh Rosen their QB behind the worst line in football. And that Braves point makes no sense as a comparison.
He was part of that trade for Josh Rosen and the nasty draft that year…
So he takes the fall for the roster and not the GM they’ve kept through years of dwindling returns, bad drafts, and even an extreme DUI? And Kliff gets years of disappointing performance with a much more talented roster? Give me a break. There was no path for Wilks to succeed in that one year and they dumped him to hire an unqualified coach they’ve retained several times as long.
Yeah, I don’t think that he was fired because of his skin color, but Wilks certainly was not given a fair shot. The very up and down Keim regime fell in love with an idea halfway through the first year of a new rebuild, and committed FAR more resources to the second one. There’s really not much comparison between the effort put into the Murray era and the Rosen experiment. Would Rosen or Wilks, in an ideal world with a properly curated rebuild, have been successful? Maybe, maybe not. But we certainly never got to see what they could have done (or failed to do) in a properly franchise.
Keim has been MUCH more aggressive in building the current team versus the lackluster effort he afforded to his last rebuild. For whatever problems Wilks had in his single year at the helm, he certainly did not have nearly as long a leash as his successor. Wilks was fired because his hit or miss GM fell in love with a Heisman winner, and tied his entire franchise to that player. Remember, he didn’t fire Wilks for just any coach, he fired him for the coach who had experience with his shiny new quarterback. As I’ve said before, I’m not saying that Wilks was or is a good head coach. I am saying that the team did not put him in the position to ever be one.
No a panthers fan, but what is really going on there? The obvious desire winning part is obvious to all businesses but for starters the hiring of management talent seem derailed somewhat…
It seems like Tepper’s impatience weighs on personnel decisions, but it’s hard to be optimistic about Fitterer. How much draft capital has he traded away for Darnold, Gilmore, Mayfield, Corral, and Henderson?
I guess at least now he doesn’t have to keep the pantry stocked with Temple alumni.
Well, Fitterer was hired to supplement a coach who was already in place with a monster contract. He replaced another GM who was noted to be very owner-friendly in Marty Hurney, who was a favorite of Richardson and smoothed out the transition to the Tepper regime until it had no use for him.
Fitterer himself comes from a regime in Seattle where the GM is more an employee than the boss. It’s hard to imagine Fitterer as anything other than very acquiescent to Tepper’s judgements. It would be hard to see him replaced by any GM that would like independence, which is an element most successful GMs expect.
Seems like the Cards situation. Keeping a bad GM while letting him cycle through coaches.
Wilks is not a head coach. His teams play like him lifeless. Yes he was treated badly in Arizona. When you get in with a pit of snakes like the worthless Steve Keim this is what happens. The decision to hire Wilks was surprising and many in Az were scratching their heads. Same as Klunksbury and “ No Raid Offense.” Wilks should of never been offered but that is what you get when you have a GM as clueless as Keim. Michael Bidwell is just another long line of Bidwell’s who own the Cardinals. He doesn’t have enough money to give a signing bonus to a free agent. He only owns the team because it has passed along. I also PUKED at the opening game against the Chiefs when the Cardinals put his daddy Bill Bidwell in the “ Ring of Honor.” Guy never did a thing to make the team better , and was well known to be cheap. He didn’t care about winning and proved it many times. No way should his name be on the “ No Ring No Honor.”