Carolina Panthers basic supervisor Dan Morgan made roughly $35 million from 2001 to 2009 as a Panthers linebacker. He acquired a $5 million signing bonus when he inked a five-year, $28 million extension with Carolina on the peak of his profession in 2005.
So when the Seattle Seahawks supplied him a yearly wage of about $35,000 to be a scout in 2010, it was a actuality examine. Nevertheless it was Morgan’s aim to grow to be an NFL basic supervisor, and he knew one of the simplest ways to do it on the time was to begin on the backside as most earlier than him had.
Morgan stated not many former gamers are keen to do this, and that is one cause solely two of 32 NFL basic managers performed within the league — Morgan and the San Francisco 49ers’ John Lynch.
There are six GMs within the 30-team NBA with professional enjoying expertise, six amongst MLB’s 30 and 15 of 32 within the NHL, in keeping with ESPN Analysis.
There have been others within the NFL, together with Tremendous Bowl-winning Ozzie Newsome of the Baltimore Ravens, however the pipeline is hardly sturdy. In 2015, the NFL established the Nunn-Wooten Scouting Fellowship, which opens the door for former gamers occupied with scouting, however there is no such thing as a formal pipeline to grow to be a basic supervisor.
An unwillingness to grind at decrease ranges is likely to be one cause so few have grow to be GMs, however others imagine gamers is likely to be able to pursue different avenues after dedicating most of their lives to soccer. Different former gamers may go for tv jobs, as Lynch did.
Morgan’s Panthers (6-5) and Lynch’s 49ers (7-4) meet Monday evening at Levi’s Stadium (8:15 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN).
“Plenty of guys, after they get completed enjoying, they need to spend time with their households [instead of pursuing a front-office job] as a result of it is an enormous dedication,” Morgan advised ESPN within the midst of his second yr as Carolina’s GM. “And normally you do have to begin from the underside, and so they’re not keen to do this.
“John Lynch is a little bit of an anomaly in that he got here proper out of the [broadcast] sales space. However more often than not it’s important to work your means up, form of be taught the ropes, earlier than being ready like this.”
With that comes paychecks which might be a fraction of what they earned as gamers, and longer hours. The offseason is even busier for them due to scouting and preparation for the draft.
“You have to be keen to do the grunt work,” stated Buffalo Payments basic supervisor Brandon Beane, a former Carolina intern who helped consider Morgan when the Panthers made him the eleventh choose of the 2001 draft after which employed him as his director of participant personnel in 2018.
“Dan was keen to do this.”
BESIDES MORGAN AND Lynch, different former NFL gamers who turned GMs embrace Newsome, a Corridor of Fame tight finish (GM of the Ravens, 2002-2018); cornerback Martin Mayhew (Commanders, 2021-23); linebacker John Dorsey (Chiefs, 2013-17; Browns, 2017-19); Corridor of Fame QB John Elway (Broncos, 2011-20); and working again Ran Carthon (Titans, 2023-24).
“A man like Ozzie impressed me,” Mayhew stated. “John Lynch and Dan Morgan are going to encourage different gamers. You are going to see different gamers that see them and are like, ‘Man, that is one thing I need to do.”’
Lynch hopes extra gamers will comply with in his footsteps.
“For some time there was possibly a bias in opposition to former gamers,” Lynch stated. “[It was,] ‘No, they do not need to do the work.’ … That is ludicrous. There is a cause that these individuals have been profitable in a job that is actually, actually robust to achieve success in.
“It’s important to not solely be proficient, however it’s important to be an unimaginable employee and persevere and overcome odds.”
Newsome understands. He guided the Ravens to Tremendous Bowl wins on the finish of the 2000 and 2012 seasons. He started his quest to grow to be a GM in 1991 as an project scout for the Cleveland Browns below coach Invoice Belichick.
“First, quite a lot of the gamers need to grow to be entrepreneurs after they retire or depart the sport,” Newsome stated. “They’ve began their very own enterprise, and so they need to proceed with enterprise.
“Plenty of them are simply fed up with soccer. They have been enjoying it since they have been 4- or 5-years previous. When your profession involves an finish, you simply say it is time to transfer on to one thing else.”
Morgan embraced the grunt work to remain concerned in soccer, viewing the educational course of for changing into a GM very like learning tape when he was a participant.
“As a former participant, you’ll be able to’t simply plop into the seat,” he stated, noting that in the present day’s recreation requires data of the wage cap and analytics on prime of participant analysis. “There’s so many shifting components all through the day.”
Beane is not stunned Morgan took that method.
“If there was a fast-track solution to do it, extra would,” he stated. “There’s simply not within the NFL. … That is the factor I at all times admired about Dan. He moved his household out to Seattle and began at a low-paying degree and put the hours in.
“You noticed him from afar doing it. That is form of what attracted me to rent him. Figuring out his love for ball and the work ethic he confirmed in Seattle.”
LYNCH COULD HAVE been in Morgan’s seat with the Panthers had David Tepper not gained the bid to buy the staff in 2018.
Lynch had talked to Ben Navarro, founder and CEO of Sherman Monetary Group, who was a finalist to purchase the staff from Carolina’s founding proprietor Jerry Richardson. Lynch and Navarro’s brother, P.T., had grow to be shut at Fox Sports activities the place P.T. labored as a producer. He advised Lynch there was curiosity in hiring him if Ben obtained the staff.
“I used to be doing a recreation in Atlanta, and he flew down, met me,” Lynch recalled. “I form of ready for it and stated, ‘Here is what my ideas could be on the way you construct a championship group.’
“And in order that was form of my first entry to, ‘OK, this presumably may very well be a actuality.”’
Lynch finally made a chilly name to Kyle Shanahan in January 2017 to supply his congratulations on getting the 49ers’ head teaching job and pitch the thought of the 2 working collectively. That led to a gathering with Shanahan and San Francisco proprietor Jed York. Each have been impressed sufficient to make a suggestion.
Lynch, who had spent eight years as an analyst for Fox Sports activities after a Corridor of Fame profession as a security, accepted.
The transfer caught many within the enterprise off guard as a result of the nine-time Professional Bowler for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos did not have any expertise as a scout or in NFL personnel.
“I used to be a bit naive,” Lynch stated. “I did not actually perceive what school scouts, what went into their life and their journey and the way a lot they pour into it.”
However Lynch efficiently utilized his expertise as an analyst and participant to his new position. He helped flip a company that gained two video games in 2016, six in 2017 and 4 in 2018 right into a staff that gained 13 video games in 2019 and reached Tremendous Bowl LIV, dropping to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs.
He did so effectively that in 2022, shortly after taking San Francisco again to the NFC title recreation, Amazon reportedly supplied him thrice his estimated $5 million wage with the 49ers to return to the printed sales space for “Thursday Evening Soccer.”
Lynch turned down the supply to chase his dream of profitable a championship as a GM, like he did as a participant with the Bucs in Tremendous Bowl XXXVII.
He credit the success he has had in administration to what made him a profitable participant: work ethic.
Morgan calls it “low egos.”
“Guys which might be simply curious, which might be at all times keen to be taught, at all times trying to get higher,” he stated. “They’re laborious employees and so they haven’t got all of the solutions.”
WHEN MORGAN WAS a rookie in 2001, the Panthers went 1-15. By his third season, they reached the Tremendous Bowl. Carolina completed his first season as GM at 5-12 and, heading into Monday’s recreation, is tied at 6-5 with the Buccaneers atop the NFC South.
Morgan believes his enjoying expertise gave him “prompt credibility” with gamers.
“Simply having the ability to lead individuals, direct individuals, give them course, that is part of it,” Morgan stated. “And having a participant’s perspective, just like the mindset of what you have to achieve success within the league, simply form of figuring out what they are going by way of each day and having the ability to establish that.
“That offers me a bonus in that sense.”
Lynch stated he’s “very focused” in the kind of participant and persona he desires to construct round.
“You really know what to search for once you’ve been there,” Lynch stated. “That is actually essential.”
Morgan discovered from basic supervisor John Scheider and head coach Pete Carroll in Seattle, however he leaned on his expertise as a participant in 2012 when he really helpful the Seahawks draft linebacker Bobby Wagner within the second spherical.
“Me being a former participant, I possibly noticed one thing in him that possibly others did not,” Morgan stated of Wagner, who turned a 10-time Professional Bowl choice. “And he turned out clearly to be actually good.”
Morgan used the identical logic this yr when drafting a pair of edge rushers, Nic Scourton in Spherical 2 and Princely Umanmielen in Spherical 3. They’ve helped flip Carolina’s protection from worst within the NFL to the center of the pack.
“As a participant, he was only a baller,” Beane stated. “He simply needed to indicate up and lead the protection and hit any person within the mouth.”
Beane recalled that Morgan as soon as tore his biceps whereas coaching throughout his enjoying profession and did not inform anyone.
“His arm was all black and blue,” he stated. “He did not need to be taken out, so he wore lengthy sleeves for the remainder of camp to attempt to masks it. He knew if the trainers noticed it that will finish his season.
“You get some guys which might be in search of the limelight, like how do I get this interview? Dan by no means cared about that stuff. Dan simply needed his work to talk for itself.”
MORGAN AND LYNCH need to construct championship rosters, however additionally they perceive there will probably be tough moments, such because the Panthers’ 17-7 loss to a one-win New Orleans staff two weeks in the past.
“Dan is an unimaginable useful resource, particularly as a result of he is been a captain,” Panthers coach Dave Canales stated. “He is been a frontrunner and in the course of this. So when he sees issues, when he displays and I sit down and speak to him, I can at all times choose that a part of his mind to say, ‘What does this really feel wish to you being on the actually good groups that you have been on?’
“Or coping with accidents, coping with off-the-field points, he is lived quite a lot of these items. And he has a very optimistic method about discovering options to issues versus looking for excuses for why issues occurred.”
Parlaying that data right into a entrance workplace profession is what Morgan and different gamers visualized after they determined the low pay and lengthy hours have been price it to be part of huge moments like Monday evening’s recreation.
Morgan talks about serving to the Seahawks win the Tremendous Bowl after the 2013 season because the assistant director of professional personnel with as a lot pleasure as he talks about having a Tremendous Bowl-record 18 tackles for the Panthers in 2003.
“I used to be simply hooked, seeing a imaginative and prescient come alive,” Morgan stated. “That was the cool half about me being on the market, what made me hungry to sit down on this seat finally.”
ESPN 49ers reporter Nick Wagoner contributed to this story.