It was last Monday, and Panthers GM Scott Fitterer had just finished a meeting with Frank Reich’s coaching staff, scheduled for one final discussion on what Carolina would do with the No. 1 pick it spent so much to get. Fitterer had been disciplined in never making a declaration to anyone on what the team would do, and that bled over into the meeting. He danced around it, making it obvious enough to everyone for the people in the room to order their kids No. 9 jerseys for the fall, without ever actually saying it.
But the time was coming, and someone would have to put it into words, eventually.
So Fitterer sauntered into Reich’s office and matter-of-factly spit it out.
the GM said jokingly,
Both smiled. Reich started laughing.
, Reich responded.
Some 72 hours later, it’d be done, and the book would be closed on a months-long process leading to a final call that, ultimately, will almost certainly either make or break Fitterer and Reich in Charlotte. There were dinners, and 30 visits, and pro days, and combine interviews. There was the big trade, and there were draft meetings, and a quarterback who was the leader wire to wire—even as the team tried to troubleshoot the decision every which way.
In the end, there was Young, and Young alone atop the Panthers’ draft board, the tag waiting to be pulled just after 8 p.m. ET in a meeting at Bank of America Stadium. And there was a building full of people who were there the whole way waiting for confirmation that night of what they all had known was coming for a while.
That knowledge is why the moment between Reich and Fitterer was so anticlimactic. It’s also why being there for the first pick Thursday night, for most of the scouts and coaches, was like being invited to a wedding—you knew who’d be trading vows—and why when Young arrived Friday, the only memorable thing he told the staff was,
For everyone, it had felt right for a while. With more time, for the Panthers, it only felt more right.
And in the MMQB column this week, with the draft behind us, we’re going to explain why.
