CHARLOTTE, NC – The Carolina Panthers are hoping Scott Fitterer will do for them what he helped the Seattle Seahawks do after the 2013 season.
Win a Super Bowl.
The team presented the 47-year-old vice president of football operations in Seattle on Thursday.
He was selected over 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 search, but according to sources, he quickly impressed the search panel.
Carolina has interviewed 15 candidates overall to replace Marty Hurney, who was sacked with two more games in a 5-11 2020 season. Among them were two internal candidates, the director of players ‘negotiations, and the manager of the salary restriction, Samir Suleiman, and the director of the players’ staff, Pat Stewart.
Each of the finalists fits the job description to be relatively young with a strong exploration background to identify talent in collaboration with head coach Matt Rhule. Owner David Tepper was also looking for a general manager who was driven by the data.
According to sources with knowledge of the rental final, Rhule will make final decisions on the 53-man squad, similar to what Andy Reid has with Kansas City and Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots.
However, Hall of Fame, NFL CEO Bill Polian has warned not to make too much of it.
“It’s very, very, very overemphasized,” said Polian, who helped Indianapolis win a Super Bowl during the 2006 season and drafted a Buffalo series that went to four Super Bowls in the early 1990s. . ” An effort between the GM and the head coach and coaching staff is to get the best 53 players, and if there’s a problem, it’s almost always decided in favor of the head coach. He has to go play.
“I’ve only had two situations in my entire career, and in both cases it went the way the head coach wanted it to.”
Fitterer has been with Seattle since 2001, initially as an area explorer. He has moved the chain up to his current position, where he has worked closely with general manager John Schneider to make the Seahawks a multi-year playoff team.
Fitterer has been interviewing for several jobs in the league’s general manager over the past few years. In his first four years as director of university research, he selected 13 players who eventually started.
Fitterer was a two-sport athlete at university, played quarterback and struck at UCLA and LSU. He spent three years in the Toronto Blue Jays league system before practicing as a part-time scout for the New York Giants in 1998.