Scott Fitterer’s “superpower” for consensus a key during draft prep

The other thing that people will tell you about the 49-year-old Fitterer is that, at his heart, he’s still a road scout.

Trained up over the years of hundred-plus nights away from home, stalking the sidelines and practice fields and press boxes, the basis of his position remained to pick the right players. It’s the kind of thing that made a quick impression on his previous boss, who’s also now one of his best friends in the business.

Fitterer had been working for the Seahawks for nine years as an area scout when John Schneider came over from the Packers to become the new GM working alongside coach Pete Carroll. Often, a new GM will come in midway through an evaluation calendar (the scouts have been on the road for five or six months if you start in January) and wait a year to make changes. But going into his second year in charge, Schneider promoted Fitterer to director of college scouting, spotting the qualities he knew he wanted, even if they weren’t necessarily the qualities he shared. Again, job security is not something you can assume with regime change. But for Schneider, it was clear that Fitterer was the kind of co-worker he wanted, the kind you build an organization with. Collect enough of the right kind of people and empower them to have opinions, and it becomes harder and harder to make big mistakes.

Few have had a better view of that than Dan Morgan. Now the Panthers assistant GM, Morgan started with the Seahawks in 2010 as a scouting intern and worked his way up the personnel ladder before taking a promotion with the Bills in 2018. Morgan was still with the Bills when Fitterer was hired here in January of 2021 and described him as the kind of guy you could have a beer and shoot off some fireworks with.

“He’s the guy who’s going to light the grill. He’s the guy who’s going to build a fire on the weekends,” Morgan said then. “He’s kind of a Mr. Do-It-All, really. Just a fun guy to be around.”

So it wasn’t necessarily a surprise when Fitterer brought Morgan in as his assistant GM, reuniting the former Pro Bowl linebacker with his old team. They’re close in a way that allows them to communicate easily and wordlessly. Morgan’s always nearby, usually on the small couch on the right side of Fitterer’s office. That also makes it hard to find space to talk to Morgan about him since they’re usually side-by-side.

“I would say, first of all, his experience, he’s done this forever and has worked under a bunch of talented people, right? He’s learned a lot of…