So, what type of players is Dan Morgan looking for to start his tenure as the president of football operations and general manager of the Carolina Panthers? He gave us that answer on Thursday.
In his introductory press conference alongside new head coach Dave Canales, Morgan laid down the vision for what he’ll be hunting for in rebuilding the team’s roster. Oh, and he gave a nod to a franchise great, who was sitting in attendance, while doing so.
“First of all, we need to find those leaders, those competitors, as J-Stew [Jonathan Stewart] would say, those dawgs,” he said. “Like, we need some dawgs. Like, we gotta get some guys that are passionate about football, that love football, that wanna come out every day and compete on the practice field, in the weight room. We need competitors. We gotta bring that back here. We gotta bring that back here to Bank of America Stadium, to where people get excited about coming to see our team.
“We’re super passionate about bringing a team that the fans can be proud of, that our players can be proud of. When teams drive up to this stadium, we want them to fear that logo. The logo has to be feared again. ‘Cause right now, it’s not feared. So we gotta get that back. But I think it starts with getting the right players.”
Well, Morgan’s not wrong. It’s difficult to believe any team in 2023 feared the 2-15 Panthers throughout the course of their most embarrassing season in team history.
But, as Morgan noted in a sit-down interview with Panthers play-by-play man Anish Shroff before the presser, things can change quickly. And that was certainly the case for Morgan and the rest of the dawgs between 2001 and 2003, when they went from a 15-loss group to NFC champions.
