4 personnel moves Scott Fitterer got right as Carolina Panthers GM

Carolina Panthers signed Johnny Hekker

What were you expecting? There's not a ton to work with when the general manager gets fired after three fairly disastrous seasons.

Looking at Johnny Hekker's page on Pro Football Reference is a fun 90 seconds. Mostly because it's extremely obvious which years he played on teams with functional offenses.

Case in point: for the 10 years he played for the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams, Hekker punted 727 times. In two years with the Carolina Panthers, Hekker's punted 163 times. That's almost 25 percent of his decade-long total. In two years!

He's still bootin' it, too. Hekker's net-yard average this season (42.4) was right around his career number (42.9), and while the number of punts he landed inside the 20 dropped a bit, focusing on that like it's a real problem for the Panthers feels like it's kinda missing the point.

Everyone needs a good punter, or so I'm told. Especially a team with one of the worst offensive strategies in franchise history. There are a lot of unknowns on Carolina's roster heading into the offseason. Hekker's importance and role in 2024 remain important with a modest salary-cap hit of $2.73 million.