We already know that Carolina Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer sits atop the rest of his peers in terms of draft-day trades, at least according to his sample size quantified by Pro Football Focus. But where does he rank amongst those peers in totality?
Around the NFL editor Gregg Rosenthal, who pieced together a recent set of power rankings for the league’s front office men, tried to put a number on that. And, well, he couldn’t.
Instead of an actual rank, Fitterer basically receives a “DNQ,” as he was determined to be “too new” to earn a fair evaluation at this point. But that didn’t stop Rosenthal from pointing out a few early hiccups from the second-year GM.
“Fitterer took over in January 2021, a year after coach Matt Rhule came aboard,” he writes. “So far, he’s been part of a disastrous Sam Darnold trade, two underwhelming free agency periods and a draft that didn’t bear immediate fruit. Passing on Justin Fields and Mac Jones looks worse a year later with the quarterback need even more pronounced.”
Fitterer was one of 10 general managers who did not qualify for the list. Topping the order, however, was the Buffalo Bills’ power duo of Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott.
The pair, of course, came up north from Carolina—where Beane spent almost two decades behind the scenes and McDermott headed the Panthers defense for six seasons. Oh, what could have been.
This, however, is Fitterer’s time in Charlotte—a tenure in which he’ll have to to break through not only in these rankings, but in the overall landscape of the NFL.
