Panthers GM candidates – Alec Halaby and Brandt Tilis know winning while Khai Harley can massage the cap

Halaby has learned from one of the league’s best GMs during his time in Philly. 

As the Carolina Panthers search for a new general manager we will highlight the 10 top candidates in this four-part series.

Alec Halaby – Assistant General Manager, Philadelphia Eagles

Given his track record in the NFL and his career trajectory with the Eagles, Alec Halaby is a serious candidate for the Panthers job.

Halaby has been with the Philadelphia Eagles since 2007 and rose from an intern in to assistant general manager in 2022. Throughout his time in Philadelphia he was part of the 2017 Super Bowl championship team and has seen Howie Grossman, arguably the NFL’s best general manager, build a team that has made the playoffs in six of the last seven years.

Halaby has done his part in building a winner in Philly. Per the team’s website, “During his tenure with the Eagles, Halaby has focused on player evaluation, roster management, and resource allocation, with a particular emphasis on integrating traditional and analytical methods in decision-making.”

Unsurprisingly, the Panthers aren’t the only team interested in the Harvard graduate. He has already interviewed with the Washington Commanders for their head of football operations job.

While I have no inside information about the Panthers candidate search, my assumption is Halaby will be a top candidate.

Brandt Tilis – Vice President of Football Operations, Kansas City Chiefs

Speaking of potential top candidates, Brandt Tilis has been with the Kansas City Chiefs since 2009 and has worked in director or vice president roles since 2014. In other words, Tilis has been one of the chief architects (pun intended) in building one of the most successful franchises in today’s NFL.

He joined the Chiefs as a salary cap/contract analyst and four years later was promoted into the role of director of salary cap and football operations for three seasons. He then spent four years as director of football administration before being promoted to VP of football operations in 2020.

There aren’t reports of Tilis interviewing elsewhere which could indicate he’s content in Kansas City riding the Patrick Mahomes-Andy Reid train for the time being.

While he has been successful with the Chiefs, the downside of spending an entire career with one NFL team is he has a limited frame of reference of how other teams operate, especially dysfunctional ones like the Carolina Panthers. But if Tilis could bring some of KC’s winning ways to Carolina (and either develop or find a generational quarterback like Patrick Mahomes), owner David Tepper should just give him a blank check to come to Charlotte.

Khai Harley – Assistant General Manager, New Orleans Saints

You know how the Saints seem to somehow operate in a world where the salary cap doesn’t exist? You can give much of the credit (or blame) to assistant general manager Khai Harley. He also serves as the team’s vice president of football operations.

Harley has been with the Saints front office for 16 years and per the team’s website his “primary focus is contract negotiation and strategic planning/management of the Saints salary cap and roster management.” He has been in the role of assistant general manager for eight years, so his fingerprints are all over the massive shell game New Orleans plays with the salary cap every year.

Prior to joining the Saints in 2008 he spent five years in labor operations with the NFL management council. Before his NFL career took off he spent five years as a financial analyst with Bloomberg. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers and a master’s degree from Springfield College (not to be confused with Springfield University).

On one level it couldn’t hurt to have a GM who knows how to turn the salary cap into a suggestion, but at some point you have to pay the piper. The bill eventually comes due by continually converting salaries into signing bonuses to push the cap hit into future years.

Plus, the Saints front office has taken a hit in recent years after missing the playoffs for the last three seasons since Drew Brees’ retirement. The front office has also failed to find a solid replacement at quarterback. The Jameis Winston (2021) and Andy Dalton (2022) experiments were one-and-dones while new arrival Derek Carr wasn’t great this year after signing a 4-year, $150,000 contract that runs through 2027.

While the Saints have dropped from the Super Bowl contender tier in recent years, Khai Harley has been an important front office figure in one of the league’s most consistently competitive franchises.