In the span of 10 months, Jon Robinson experienced the extreme high and extreme low of life as an NFL general manager.
In that time, Robinson was given a multi-year contract extension and a ringing endorsement from Tennessee Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, only to be unceremoniously fired midseason following a 25-point blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 13 for not meeting “higher aspirations.”
Cutting ties with a GM during the season is a rarity in the NFL. And the ones who do get axed usually aren’t at the top of their division with a winning record and on track for a sixth straight winning season and fourth straight playoff appearance. That makes the timing of Adams Strunk’s decision all the more puzzling.
“Honestly, [once] I had made the decision, it was time to move forward,” she told the Associated Press in December. “There was no reason to go six, seven, eight weeks — however long we remain in the season. It was not fair to Jon, it was not fair to the team; it just seemed the right thing. It gives us plenty of opportunity now to identify future candidates that we’re going to interview, to get to watch the internal candidates. I’m just not that person that’s going to sit on a decision like that.”
Statistically speaking, Robinson is the most successful GM in franchise history.
In six-plus seasons, he compiled a .605 winning percentage (66-43 record) with six straight winning seasons, four playoff appearances, back-to-back AFC South titles and an AFC championship game appearance. But despite all of Robinson’s accolades, Adams Strunk said she realized he likely had taken the team as far as he could, and it was time for fresh blood — someone who could launch the Titans into the upper echelon of the NFL.
“I told the fans from the very beginning that I want to win it all and I want to be one of those elite teams that people are always scared of, and it’s my responsibility,” Adams Strunk told the AP. “And eventually it’s up to me to make those kind of decisions that get us there.”
Rumblings from those close to the situation indicate there are two likely paths that Adams Strunk’s GM search could take.
The first — and perhaps most likely scenario — is to promote from within. The Titans have two executives on staff — Ryan Cowden and Monti Ossenfort — who have interviewed for GM openings over the past few years, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that one or both could be poached away as soon as this offseason.
Both Cowden, who’s Tennessee’s interim GM and VP of player personnel, and Ossenfort, the director of player personnel, could help make a seamless transition, and both know the inner workings of the team, having worked extensively with head coach Mike Vrabel. And while it’s doubtful that Vrabel wants complete autonomy over personnel decisions, it’s likely he will yield more authority over his roster after making some tongue-in-cheek digs this season about Tennessee’s lack of receiver depth and a few other roster shortcomings.
The second path involves the Titans shaking things up with an external hire, presumably someone with a strong track record of drafting and developing top-end talent.
There are many young up-and-coming executives who fit that bill, but guys like Kansas City Chiefs assistant GM Mike Borgonzi, San Francisco 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters and former Houston Texans GM Rick Smith seem to be of the mold that Adams Strunk is searching for.
Borgonzi directs the Chiefs’ college and professional scouting departments, and he works in tandem with GM Brett Veach on roster management, player acquisition, the draft and free agency. He’s had a hand in drafting the likes of Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Chris Jones, Kareem Hunt and Justin Houston.
Peters is 49ers GM John Lynch’s right-hand man. He has an impressive scouting résumé that includes eight seasons with the Denver Broncos, working his way up from a regional scout to a national scout to the director of college scouting. In Denver, Peters helped acquire 27 players who were a part of the team’s Super Bowl-winning roster in 2015. In San Francisco, he’s played a part in the drafting of George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Fred Warner.
Seven of Smith’s 11 seasons in Houston resulted in a winning record, and he led the Texans to four AFC South titles. He also has a track record of hitting on first-round draft picks, including Duane Brown, Brian Cushing, Kareem Jackson, J.J. Watt, Whitney Mercilus, DeAndre Hopkins and Deshaun Watson. Vrabel also worked for Smith in Houston from 2014 to 2017 when he was the Texans’ linebackers coach, then defensive coordinator.
Adams Strunk has made it clear she’s working on no timeline but her own, and she’s doing her due diligence.
The last time she made a move as polarizing as this — firing then-head coach Mike Mularkey in 2018 after consecutive winning seasons and a road playoff win over the Kansas City Chiefs — it yielded Vrabel, who’s won the third-most games (50) with the second-best winning percentage (.581) in franchise history among coaches with three or more years of service.
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