The drive with Tim Donnelly 99 9. The fan. This is a special overtime edition of the Drive overdrive overdrive edition of the Drive because uh today is Monday, January 22nd and with 2.5 minutes left in our show today, uh news broke that the Panthers had found their GM and they didn’t have to look for and I have reactions that I couldn’t fit into 2.5 minutes. So we’re back. This is one of the more baffling decisions I can remember in, in NFL hiring and firing Dan Morgan uh is the new GM of the, the Carolina Panthers. You may remember Dan Morgan as somebody that was in the front office already. I believe it was the assistant general manager uh for the, the Carolina Panthers over the last three years. You may remember him from his time as a player where he spent seven years playing for the, the Carolina Panthers. Um Here’s the deal. My criticism that I am about to give to this higher is, is very little to do with Dan Morgan, the person than Dan Morgan. Heck even the executive, it has everything to do with moving on from what disaster you put on the field in 2023 and starting fresh. 2023. We’ve broken it down on the show before. Uh, it’s the worst season in franchise history. 2020 or sorry. 2001 was pretty bad. 2019 was pretty bad in some ways. Uh, you know, 2010 was pretty bad for my money. This was the worst season in franchise history. So when you fire the GM, it’s tough to turn around and stay in the house for the, the, the hire for the simple fact of you fired Scott Fitterer to move on from the people that assembled this year’s roster. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny because, uh, I’ll use like Adam Gold, who, who hosts on this network, good friend of the show. Uh, as soon as this hire happened, he retweeted the, the, one of the announcements hiring, you know, hey, Dan Morgan’s a new GM and his response was simply gotta rebuild the roster. How ridiculous is it that you would hire somebody who was a part of putting together the roster to rebuild the roster? That’s, that’s like I painted the walls and then you hire me to paint over the walls that I painted. It’s like, well, I was just the assistant painter the first time I’m going to a completely new firm, I’m going to a completely new, uh, painting organization. I’m not going try again unless you’re giving me a discount or something like that, then it’s a whole other story new paints the whole deal. I have the, uh, the statement from, from David Tepper in front of me. Uh, this is in part Dan has a thorough knowledge of our football personnel and a clear vision to take us where we all want to go. We know he will attack this opportunity with the same intensity he did as a Panthers player. He has a full knowledge of the personnel because he helped choose them. And the first thing I think you need to do is change most of the personnel. I don’t care if you know the guy, I care that you want to replace the guy. Right. Oh, he knows our offensive line very, very well. I’m like, good. I hope he doesn’t know next year’s offensive line very, very well because I hope most of them are different. Oh, he knows our defensive, uh, front very, very well, great outside of Brian Burns and Derek Brown. I don’t think you need to know the rest of them. Maybe the ones that are still on rookie contracts because you can, you can salvage some of that. I, I look at it like it, it very simply, I look at this as, uh, the Panthers had an opportunity to change the direction of their franchise, which based on where they’ve been the last five years under David Tepper, they needed to change the direction of their franchise. It’s, it’s right when, when he took over, they were a playoff team, been getting worse ever since. Just down and down and down. They, they, they had an opportunity to change things. Now, Dan, for most, uh, Dan Morgan, for, from most of the, the reports is gonna have the personnel say. Right. So he’s the one deciding which players are good, which ones are part of the future, which ones they should target in the draft, which ones they should target in free agency and trades and they’ll bring in somebody else to be the the cap analytics guru. I think he could have gotten 22 outsiders. I think he could have really taken this opportunity to start fresh. I’m not sure I want somebody that’s been around this franchise. I’m not sure I want somebody that’s been around this roster uh having a say in what happens to it moving forward. And again, I wanna say this with my chest because it’s, it’s always tough to criticize the hire of a player who is kind of a franchise legend. Right. Morgan did play with the Panthers for seven seasons, right. Morgan was known for his, his, you know, kind of kukly before kukly like heady play or whatever you want to call it all those things they say about Jim Rats or whatever he, he, he, he’s good, right? Made a bunch of tackles in the Super Bowl. I got you. I hear you. No disrespect to him. It was about moving on from last year, right. Uh Starting fresh. I imagine if they fired Frank Reich and then hired Frank Reich’s right hand man. It would feel weird, wouldn’t it? It would feel like no, I think we, I think we were trying to go in a different direction. He was Scott Fitter’s right hand man for the last three years. Now. I said this on, on my initial reaction on the show. The only way this makes any sense is if he had some kind of proof, like if they have a, a slack channel or a teams or a Google doc somewhere where I mean, they’ve made some really bad personnel decisions over the last couple of years if he has documentation where he was the only one in the room saying I think this is a bad idea, right? If he was the only one saying, well, maybe we keep DJ Moore. So Bryce Young has a number one option at wide receiver, if he was the only one saying maybe we don’t trade up for DJ Johnson if he was the only one saying, you know, I, I don’t think we need Terrace Marshall Junior. I think we might be able to roll with Nico Collins who was drafted far after him in that draft. Like, and I don’t know if he was around how long ago that was Dan Morgan’s been there for like three years. Um Unless he has documentation that says proof that says somebody backing him up, somebody else that was in the room going. Yeah, Dan was standing on the table saying that was a really dumb move. Uh Dan was the only one saying we either need to resign, Brian Burns or or sorry, extend Brian Burns or accept the two first round picks we were getting from the Rams in an offer. There’s no way we should let this drag out and, and unless they have proof, a witness, a bunch of witnesses written documentation, something that says all of these little decisions that led to the worst season in Panthers history. Dan Morgan was vehemently opposed of those little decisions. I don’t know what we’re doing here because if he’s cosigning some of these decisions, that’s enough to say, Dan, we love you. I would even be open to maybe keeping him as some kind of lieutenant role to whoever the next, you know, leaders of the franchise are because he is somebody that means something to the Panthers but rolling with the, the same SS. It’s just, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t. And, and the like this is pretty stream of consciousness. I mean, obviously we’ve been doing a lot of, uh, you know, talk about who the G M’s gonna be, who the head coach is gonna be when there’s this many problems on the tip of my tongue. This, no, this news broke 17 minutes ago like it and, and I’ve been talking here on this pod for like, I don’t know, 5678 of them. Like this is, this is a really tough look. Dennis. What am I missing? I think you’re pretty spot on, on this. I mean, so when things are a dumpster fire, you’re going to promote the understudies. Like that’s the thing I, I don’t get, I mean, unless, unless, um, 90% of the decisions that were made by Scott Fitterer as a general manager, Dan Organ is like, I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this. And if David Tepper was hearing that, but Tepper was backing up Fitterer and he’s like, well, ok, you said this is the reason why they’re wrong. Ok. I, I don’t know, I, I, ok, I don’t get it. Let’s don’t get it. Let’s put on our, our tinfoil hats quickly here. Um, could this be David Tepper knows? I don’t want to say Dan Morgan owes him now, but Dan Morgan listens if that makes any. Like, it’s obvious David Tepper wants a lot of control over this franchise, right? The, the impatience, the meddling that we’ve heard and, and, and it has been reported a bunch over the last few years. If he’s looking for a yes man, it’s, it’s easier to know if you have one if they’re already in the building than to hire someone else and just think Oh, I can get them to do what I want. Maybe he just knows Dan Morgan is somebody that, you know, can handle the day to day the waiver and all that sort of stuff. And he’ll come down to my office and I’ll tell him what to do with the first round picks and I’ll tell him what to do with Brian Burns and I’ll tell him what to do with the high leverage fund decisions that are, it’s like I get to play fantasy football and, and he will handle, you know, making sure our, our practice squad is up to date and making sure we have a punt returner. You know, every, every single week, maybe this was the, the easiest way for David Tepper to get everything he wants, which I would guess is not everything that’s best for the franchise, but that, that’s a little bit more tinfoil hat. Uh We’ll, we’ll talk about it on Tuesday’s show with Ton on the drive 99 9. The fan at three o’clock. Hope to hear you. Hope to see you there so you can hear us, I guess would be the way to put that, uh, until then have a great night. Everybody Panthers fans stay strong out there.

Source: wralsportsfan.com