Jerry Richardson is one of the most active- non active owners in league history. His presence in the league is felt just as much as Jerry Jones, but he delegates his team very well to the positions that he should.  I think though that he has given Hurney a little to much control over this team. 

   via i.huffpost.com

I rememberthe interviews from the 2009 and 2010 draft when questions where raised about the players drafted.  Fox would then turn the interview over to Hurney who explained the way the Panthers drafted.  He stated that they would look at the board and look at the highest rated guy and vote on him if they could not agree on that player after reasoning with   they would pass on said player. To me this sounds allot like the Survivor vote off. If you go into the draft thinking you want a certain guy, all you need is to get people on your side.  Now what if Hurney happened to get more coaches and scouts to agree with him (the GM) versus John Fox (the Head Coach).  That would create a situation of stress for anyone. It might even sway John Fox to start "his guys" over "Their Guys" ie: Jake Delhomme over Matt Moore, Nate Sally over Sherod Martin or Charles Godfrey, Nail Diggs over James Anderson, ect.  The excuse could be that these younger players are not ready yet or they haven't earned a spot on the field. 

With all the money tied up on the bench. A GM might be forced to play his hand and release alot of the veteran players.  This way he could say my picks are fine you just can't coach them well.

" ""We've got a budget and that had something to do with it,"

If this speculation is true.  Then it looks like both Fox and Hurney were right.  The young guys were not ready, the GM did not do a good job of evaluating the talent on his roster and made some bad moves.  The veteran guys were holding back the development of the younger players who should have been on the field sooner.

Every expert except local media believe John Fox is an excellent coach. If we judge the team by this season you could say that the panthers organization has not drafted well at all. I'm not talking about the "stars" on the team im talking about the other 18 starters on both sides of the ball.

Lets face it. The team we have now was almost completely built by the draft. That makes us 1-11.

What we have is a FO that is trying to see who has the bigger ****.  And Mr Richardson is laying in bed thinking "This is not what i wanted at all."

So next year we will be left with this Hurney product and a coach that he hand-picked.  If his talent for finding coaches is as good as his talent for finding players.  We will have a great head coach with horrible coordinators. Sounds kinda familiar.

"Sometimes you have to force yourself to give those guys that opportunity and that experience," Hurney said. "We wouldn't do these things without those players there."