Marty Hurney no longer is a member of the Commanders’ front office, Ben Standig of TheAthletic.com reports.
Hurney, an advisor for the team last season, is not listed on the Commanders’ website.
His contract expired after the 2024 season.
Ron Rivera, who worked with Hurney in Carolina, hired him as executive vice president of football for player personnel in 2021. After the Commanders hired a new General Manager and head coach in 2024, the team kept Hurney on as an advisor.
Hurney began his career as an NFL executive in 1990 with the Chargers, working as coordinator of football operations until the Panthers hired him in 1998 as the director of football administration.
He worked his way up in the Panthers’ organization to director of player operations (1999-01) and then General Manager (2002-12, 2017-20).
Former Panthers quarterback Cam Newton recently said that he arrived in 2011 to a “locker room of losers.” Former teammate Steve Smith Sr. and other Panthers from the 2010 team took exception.
Newton addressed the situation on the latest episode of his Fourth and 1 podcast.
“When did we become so sensitive?” Newton said, via the Associated Press. “When did we become so sensitive to really speaking what the reality is? A locker room full of losers? Aggressive, but it’s true.”
Newton said he wasn’t referring to any particular players, but to the entire situation with a team that went 2-14 the year before the Panthers made him the first overall pick in the draft.
“I’m not specifically talking about those guys,” Newton said “I’m talking about the culture that was there prior to me coming into the locker room -- and it was a losers’ mentality.”
The Panthers improved to 6-10 in Newton’s first year. By his fifth season, he was the NFL MVP and the Panthers went to the Super Bowl.
“Is it me saying that, ‘Oh when I came, I made everything [better]?’” Newton said. “No. I never said that. What I said was if you’re getting drafted No. 1, you’re going to a bad football team. That’s facts. And that’s the point that I was trying to tell Travis Hunter. You see what I’m saying? For me, everybody is so taken aback, like, ‘Oh, Cam said this.’ Bro, it’s the truth. It’s the truth.”
His broader point — that the first overall pick ends up with the worst team from the prior year — is true. He still went too far in making it. Instead of acknowledging that, he doubled down.
We’ll see what, if anything, his former teammates have to say about his latest remarks.
The Panthers aren’t planning to have a new long snapper in 2025.
J.J. Jansen is re-signing with Carolina, per agent Jansen, 39, is the longest-tenured Panther, having been with the club since he was acquired via trade in 2009.
He’s played in every one of Carolina’s 260 games since.
As noted by Sheehy, Jansen is currently tied for the most games played by a pure long snapper in league history. He’ll break that in Week 1 of 2025.
Former Panthers quarterback Cam Newton made a stir with comments about the state of the franchise when he arrived in 2011. Although his underlying point (the first pick usually gets drafted by a bad team) makes sense, Newton went too far in referring to the Panthers as a “locker room full of losers.”
Former Panthers receiver Steve Smith Sr. let Newton know about it. Other former Carolina teammates have, too.
“For him to say that we was losers was a slap in the face,” former Panthers cornerback Captain Munnerlyn told Joseph Person of TheAthletic.com. “This was a team who was two years removed from playing in the NFC divisional round against the Arizona Cardinals. We lost a couple pieces. We had Checkdown Jimmy Clausen at quarterback and we had a bad year. . . . For him to say losers was crazy.”
Former Panthers defensive end Charles Johnson reacted to Newton’s remarks on social media.
“A professional calling his teammates losers will never sit well with me,” Johnson said. “Don’t care what no one says. We all battle together. Not just one person. It’s never one person who will win a game. That’s ego talking! Team game, respect the guys.”
Johnson also said this: “Damn smh losers is a crazy word!!!! I had my best season [in 2010]. I have multiple cam [stories] if we trying to take it there.”
Tackle Jordan Gross, a Pro Bowler during the 2-14 season that gave the Panthers the top pick in the 2011 draft, chimed in as well.
“There were iconic Panthers players when Cam got there,” Gross told Person. “And you’d be foolish to say that he wasn’t a gigantic addition to the success of the organization when he arrived — also when [head coach] Ron Rivera arrived. So there’s a pretty damn good argument that [Rivera] had a lot to do with it as well.”
Munnerlyn realizes that Cam is simply trying to boost his post-football career.
“He wants to be relevant still,” Munnerlyn told Person. “He’s in this media world where he does his podcasts and First Take stuff, which is good. I’m happy for him. I’m proud of him. But I think he still says some stuff just to be relevant still. And if you know Cam, you’ve been around him for years, that’s Cam Newton. . . .
“So the stuff he’s saying, he just wants to still be relevant. He don’t have to do all that to be relevant. You’re freaking Cam Newton, bro. You changed a franchise. You’re probably one of the biggest players that’s played here — at the quarterback position, for sure. So you don’t have to do all this other stuff, man. You’re already 6-6, 200-whatever pounds. You don’t have to do that to be relevant, bro. You’re freaking Cam Newton.”
Newton hasn’t addressed the situation on social media. He presumably will have something to say, either on his podcast or on First Take.
And it’s OK for him to say he overdid it a little bit. When constantly speaking extemporaneously, there will inevitably be times when it happens. (Been there, done that. Still doing it, from time to time.)
The best thing Cam can do at this point is to acknowledge that he made a bad choice of words. Because he did. Digging in and doubling down will only make it worse.
The Bills have found a new special teams coordinator.
Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, Buffalo is hiring Chris Tabor for the role.
Tabor, 53, was most recently the Panthers’ interim head coach to end the 2023 season, going 1-5. He had been the club’s special teams coordinator since 2022.
Tabor has also been the special teams coordinator for the Browns and Bears.
While head coach Sean McDermott had previously said that Matthew Smiley would return as special teams coordinator, things clearly changed. It was reported on Sunday that the Bills had elected to part ways with Smiley, who had been with the club since 2017 — first as assistant special teams coordinator before being promoted to the unit’s coordinator in 2022.
