Making an NFL GM change in the summer has its benefits

Since the NFL Draft, three teams have made a change at general manager: the Buffalo Bills dismissed Doug Whaley, the Kansas City Chiefs said goodbye to John Dorsey, and just this week the Carolina Panthers fired Dave Gettleman.

To say this signals a change in how teams will handle the business of shaking up their front offices is probably foolish, but making a change in the summertime at least buys the organization time to make a change and not have the successor under intense scrutiny from the minute that person takes over.

Dorsey and Gettleman were known for a flinty management style that suggests that internal conflicts and animosity within the organizations had as much to do with the timing of their departures as anything. If a GM is a toxic presence in the front office and alienating players, what good does it do to let him play out the string over the course of a football season before letting him go in January? That it happened twice after the start of summer in one offseason is certainly surprising but hardly indicative of a trend.

The Panthers hardly inspired a ton of confidence by naming Marty Hurney as the interim general manager. Hurney had served as GM of the Panthers for nearly a decade before being fired six games into the 2012 season. Though Hurney was responsible for bringing on Ron Rivera and drafting Cam Newton, his last few years as GM with the Panthers were marked by abysmal drafts and a couple consecutive seasons of missing the postseason. Contrast that with Gettleman, who had presided over the team making the playoffs three years in a row before the letdown of 2016’s 6-10 finish.

If Carolina was going to make the change now, it would make more sense if it had an immediate successor lined up the way the Chiefs did with Brett Veach, who was promoted from within the organization. Appointing an interim makes sense if the Panthers consider it a priority to redo an important contract before the start of the 2017 regular season. Otherwise it’s a head-scratcher. Assuming the team isn’t totally inept at drafting, continuity is important when it comes to general managers in a way that it isn’t always the case with coaching.

While making a front office change immediately after the season is intuitive to fans, it isn’t the easiest process in an NFL front office. Player evaluation and scouting is an always ongoing process. Making a sweeping front office change in January allows a GM to put his mark on the roster with free agency, though it also means having a decision maker called in who hasn’t worked with the scouting department that has put in extensive work preparing for that year’s draft class.

Preparation is long since underway for the 2018 NFL Draft, which observers would assume, and Panthers fan would hope, won’t be overseen by Hurney. It makes sense for the Panthers to have some patience when it comes to making a significant decision like naming a new general manager and shows that Gettleman’s departure was likely touched off by an explosive incident with management. Naming a new one either before the 2017 season or not far into it would make the most sense, as it would allow the replacement to situate himself during a time when there would be almost no pressure, since Gettleman would have been mostly responsible for the current roster, and allow him to become involved in the evaluation process well in advance of having to retool the roster next offseason.