26 replies to this topic

[Mr. Scot]

Look over the staff of most NFL teams and you'll see someone with the title "Director of Player Personnel". In the majority of management models, this is the guy who oversees all scouting and talent evaluation at both the college and pro level. What differentiates them from a GM or an assistant GM is that they don't necessarily do any actual management, only evaluation.

And yes, the Panthers used to have one of those. The last one was Jack Bushofsky, who retired in 2003 leaving Marty Hurney pretty much running the whole show.

Fast forward to today and you'll see the Panthers staff directory lists a Director of College Scouting (Don Gregory), a Director of Pro Scouting (Mark Koncz), a Director of Team Administration (Rob Rogers, the cap guy), a Director of Football Operations (Brandon Beane, a logistics guy from what little I've been able to find on him ) and - at least up until recently - a General Manager.

But no Director of Player Personnel.

So if the choice were yours, would you want to have a 'chief evaluator' back in the fold, allowing the new GM to focus on roster building and cap management, or is the notion of having that extra guy in the front office seem redundant and you'd rather just have the GM handle all of it?

[Ivan The Awesome]

Interesting bit. I though Hurney had an assistant.

[jtnc]

Two.

[Daddy Uncle]

I'd take the two. The less one person has to worry about and focus on, the better for everyone.

[Alverez]

Two. And I thought the same thing... that Hurney had an assistant of some sort.

[SwagMan]

Thank you Mr. Scot for a worthwhile post. This place has been overwhelmed with garbage. Two minds are always better than one. That is only if those two minds agree on things. You do not want conflict in the front office.

[Zod]

I would like the GM to be heavy in finance and cap management with the director being heavy in talent evaluation.

Winning teams are built on spreadsheets in this league.

[NanuqoftheNorth]

I would imagine these two individuals would not remain coequals even if it started out that way.

That being the case, I would prefer the talent evaluator to be at the top of the decision making food chain.

Hurney is a painful reminder of what happens when the ultimate decision maker is a poor judge of talent.

[Zod]

Hurney is a painful reminder of what happens when the ultimate decision maker is a poor judge of talent.

Thats what Hurney was though, a talent evaluator. What we got was sub par talent at high prices.


The problem with talent evaluators at the top is that they are attached to players for reasons of pride. Its difficult for them to admit they were wrong and stick with players far too long after shelling out way to much money to retain them.

With the GM on the finance side, less emotional and prideful attachment will be there, if a player is not performing...thats on the director. There will be less of an inclination to stick with a player for no other reason than he was a high draft pick or we mistakenly gave him a truck load of cash.

[NanuqoftheNorth]

Thats what Hurney was though, a talent evaluator. What we got was sub par talent at high prices.


The problem with talent evaluators at the top is that they are attached to players for reasons of pride. Its difficult for them to admit they were wrong and stick with players far too long after shelling out way to much money to retain them.

With the GM on the finance side, less emotional and prideful attachment will be there, if a player is not performing...thats on the director. There will be less of an inclination to stick with a player for no other reason than he was a high draft pick or we mistakenly gave him a truck load of cash.

I was thinking more along the lines of auto industry bean counters that override the engineers, resulting in cars like the Pinto with exploding fuel tanks.

I would have never guessed Hurney was hired for his abilities to evaluate talent.

He definitely seemed to hang on to his draft picks well beyond their expiration dates and pay them like pro bowlers.

You make a compelling case for the money guy being in charge. Time will tell.

Hopefully the new front office personnel turn out to be a vast improvement over what the Panthers have grown accustom to. They already have a deep enough hole to climb out of as it is.

[SCP]

Who ever we hire I want them to be ruthless pricks with no loyalty to individual players - I want them only to be looking at how a move will help this team win football games. That has always been a major fault of this outfit - putting individuals over the team.

I agree.

I would also like two. Checks and balances need to be in place.

[Mr. Scot]

Interesting bit. I though Hurney had an assistant.

Two. And I thought the same thing... that Hurney had an assistant of some sort.

No assistant GM that I know of, but Rob Rogers was the "cap guy".

[mwright350]

I'd like to see two purely because I think our net value will be higher if we go that route. A very good talent guy plus a very good finance / cap / contract guy is going to leave us better in both areas, more than likely, than one guy who does both.

The fields are so disparate that we'd almost definitely have to lower the bar to get two in one.

[Mr. Scot]

I would like the GM to be heavy in finance and cap management with the director being heavy in talent evaluation.

Winning teams are built on spreadsheets in this league.

See, I'm just the opposite. I'd rather have the football guy in the GM spot, then give him an experienced finance guy to help with the economics.

Guess when you think about it, you're really talking about three positions here: A chief evaluator, a cap manager, and a GM over the two. It's still only two hires though because we technically already have a cap guy in Rob Rogers, unless you want to replace him with someone who has more experience (and I could get behind that).

When it comes to the ultimate authority though, to me that has to be the football guy. I understand what you mean about GMs getting tied to their players (Hurney was bad about that) but there are guys out there who are capable of taking the "not personal, it's business" approach.

They just don't work here.