9 worst free-agent signings under former Carolina Panthers GM Scott Fitterer
By Dean Jones
Pat Elflein - Former Carolina Panthers OL
The Carolina Panthers were looking to make a big splash by reinforcing the offensive line during the first offseason with Scott Fitterer as general manager. The new front-office leader and head coach Matt Rhule had a grand plan in place. Perhaps surprisingly, this saw those in power identify Pat Elflein as a high free-agent priority.
Elflein was coming off a season where he was waived by the Minnesota Vikings and floundered on the New York Jets. As expected, he failed to provide the necessary upgrade to their interior.
While there was some improvement from Elflein's perspective when manning the center position, it was underwhelming overall. When injury resulted in Bradley Bozeman being introduced into the starting lineup, cutting the veteran out of Ohio State with one year remaining on his deal was a no-brainer before the 2023 campaign.
Miles Sanders - Carolina Panthers RB
When the Panthers traded Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers, they got decent production from the running back tandem of Chuba Hubbard and D'Onta Foreman in his absence. Many thought they would keep faith with the pair, but Scott Fitterer had other ideas.
Instead of giving Foreman another one-year deal with relatively little cost attached, Fitterer and the Panthers opted to spend decent money on Miles Sanders. Once again, it was a grave error in judgment from the recently fired general manager.
Sanders failed to meet expectations. He lost his starting position to Hubbard and played a bit-part role over the second half of 2023. The former Penn State standout appears to be a cut candidate looking at how Dan Morgan is going about his business. There aren't any financial benefits, so maybe they'll give him another look next season to see if performance levels improve under Dave Canales.