Marty Hurney had some great moments at Panthers GM, but it was time for him to go
Marty Hurney had a good run with the Carolina Panthers. Two good runs, actually.
But Panthers owner David Tepper fired Hurney Monday, and the real surprise was that it didn’t happen sooner.
It was time for Hurney to go. There was no doubt about that.
This is a results-driven business, as Hurney often tells people, and Carolina hasn’t made the playoffs for the past three years in a row. The Panthers are 16-30 in that time frame, and Hurney was one of the last vestiges of the Jerry Richardson era that Tepper has systematically been scrubbing from Bank of America Stadium.
I had thought Tepper would fire Hurney along with Ron Rivera a year ago. Instead, the owner kept Hurney around for another season, in part to continue to teach both Tepper (who bought the Panthers in 2018) and new head coach Matt Rhule the NFL ropes.
Said Tepper: “I think sometimes it’s not bad to have a good teacher around … And, at some point, you graduate and try to figure if you can do other things away from it, maybe better. And that’s kind of where we are … Marty Hurney is a very good evaluator. ... Me and Matt, I think we both learned from Marty. A lot. (But) sometimes the students have to graduate.”
Hurney, 65, is an old-school traditionalist; a guy who likes to go out and watch football players in person. He believes in his eyes and his gut, rather than taking the data-driven “Moneyball” approach that Tepper wants to be more integrated into the organization.
“I think Marty is a little bit more traditional and I’m probably a little bit more data-driven and analytical,” Tepper said in a Zoom press conference Monday morning. “I think meshing those two things should be good and a little bit of fresh and refresh, you know?”
Tepper says QB must be evaluated
Tepper was also lukewarm during the press conference when asked repeatedly about Carolina quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who has gone 0-for-8 in late-game situations this season when needing points to either win or tie the game.
Tepper said several times that the QB position would need to be evaluated after the season. The Panthers (4-10) could have a top-5 pick in the 2021 NFL draft, where several top college QBs will still be available (although not Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, the consensus No. 1 pick).
Hurney signed Bridgewater to a three-year, $63-million contract in early 2020 to replace Cam Newton, in part because new offensive coordinator Joe Brady had worked with Bridgewater in New Orleans and really wanted him.
“That’s the most important position in the field,” Tepper said about the quarterback spot. “‘And unless you have that guy for sure that gets you to playoffs and Super Bowls, you have to keep re-evaluating that. Because that’s the only thing that matters: Super Bowls. And until you have that guy, you’re evaluating, evaluating, evaluating every year.”
Hurney, whose contract was set to expire in June 2021, becomes the rare NFL general manager to get fired twice by the same organization. A former sportswriter, he joined the Panthers in 1998 as director of football administration, became the team’s GM in 2002 and was essential to the Panthers’ Super Bowl run in 2003 and several good playoff teams after that.
Richardson fired Hurney during the 2012 season after Carolina started 1-5 but rehired Hurney, who had remained in Charlotte, on an interim basis just before the 2017 season began — a move necessary because the owner made the bizarre move of terminating GM Dave Gettleman just before training camp began. After Carolina went 11-5 and made the playoffs that season, the “interim” title was removed and Hurney was GM again.
Hurney move to Washington a possibility
In his second go-around with the team, Hurney tamped down his temper and steered away from the big-money, let’s-stay-loyal-to-our-draft-picks signings that haunted his first tenure and put Carolina in a massive salary-cap hole.
There was one huge exception: Hurney gave Christian McCaffrey a contract extension that made him the highest-paid running back in NFL history earlier this year, although NFL analytics generally say that paying running backs huge money is a losing proposition because of the high injury risk.
McCaffrey, who hadn’t missed a single NFL game in his first three seasons when the contract was signed, has missed 11 of a potential 14 this year due to three separate injuries. Tepper said Monday the firing of Hurney wasn’t specifically because of the McCaffrey contract — which looks like a questionable deal in retrospect — but it certainly didn’t help.
It’s quite possible Hurney will get another job. Tepper said the timing of the decision was “mutually beneficial,” in that it would allow the Panthers and Hurney to both start looking. Hurney had a warm relationship with Rivera in Carolina, and the Washington Football Team is now looking for a new GM to work alongside Rivera.
Among Hurney’s greatest hits in over close to two decades in Charlotte: He drafted quarterback Cam Newton and linebacker Luke Kuechly, stole tight end Greg Olsen from Chicago in a lopsided trade that Bears fans still bemoan and found quarterback Jake Delhomme as a low-priced free agent. Hurney was heavily involved in accumulating the players that led to both of Carolina’s Super Bowl appearances, in 2003 and 2015, although Gettleman was GM for the 2015 appearance.
Hurney also led the searches for and ultimately hired the Panthers’ three most recent head coaches: John Fox, Rivera and Rhule. And he has picked several defensive players in recent drafts that should anchor Carolina’s defense for years, including Brian Burns, Jeremy Chinn and Derrick Brown.
Hurney, who declined my interview request Monday via a text message, once told me that most NFL general managers get to hire one head coach, and their personal job fortunes sink or swim with that guy.
Hurney said in that conversation he knew he was fortunate to have been able to hire not one, not two, but three head coaches in his Panthers career. And that’s true, given Hurney’s overall record as Carolina’s GM was well below .500.
Now he will move on, as will the Panthers. Hurney had some really nice moments in Carolina.
But it was time.
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 12:09 PM.
