Tennessee Titans Hire 2 former Raiders General Managers.

On January 26th, 2024 the Tennessee Titans made two moves to their staff: Dave Ziegler and Reggie McKenzie. Looking at the Las Vegas Raiders 22 years since their last playoff win, this leaves initial concern to Titans fans, but lets see what these moves have in store.

The Titans newly appointed general manager Mike Borgonzi hired New Orleans Saints personnel advisor Dave Ziegler to be his assitant general manager. Ziegler, who spent a year and a half as the general manager of the Raiders, has a long history of scouting for winning teams. Between 2010 and 2012, Ziegler climbed the rankings for the Denver Broncos, a team that woulda go on to win a super bowl in the 2015-2016 season, meaning he likely scouted talent for that team. After being hired in 2013, Ziegler would climb his way all the way up to director of player personnel in 2021 for the New England Patriots. During his 8 year stint with head coach Bill Belichick, the Pats would win 3 super bowl and win the AFC an addition 2 times. This success led to Ziegler being named the Raiders general manager in january of 2022. In his first draft with the team, he didn't have a pick until the third round, and notably only drafted breakout running back Zamir White. In 2023, however, he drafted many decent players such as linebacker Tyree Wilson, tight end Michael Mayer, defensive lineman Byron Young, wide reciever Tre Tucker, and quarterback Aidan O'Connell. Due to limited success, Ziegler was fired on halloween of 2023. Ziegler finally spent the 2024 season with the Saints as a personnel advisor.

The Tennessee Titans also appointed former linebacker Reggie McKenzie as a scout in a key, senior scouting role, McKenzie started his career being an assistant head coach for his former college, the University of Tennessee, and in his lone 1993 season landed a recruiting class including hall of fame quarterback Peyton Manning. After that season, he was hired by the Green Bay Packers as a scout and rose through the rankings until being the teams director of football operations through the 2012 season. McKenzie would then be hired by the Raiders as their general manager. He took over a train wreck of an organization being well over the salary cap and not having a draft pick until the third round. McKenzie would, however, resurge the team by drafting talent lke Amari Cooper, Derek Carr, and Khalil Mack. The Raiders were decent for a few years, but eventually hired head coach Jon Gruden who would have much more authority then McKenzie and traded away much of the talen he drafted. This likely lead to his soon firing in 2018. In 2019, he got hired as a senior personnel executive, and held that role for 5 years before being fired.

So what do I think about the move? I'm fairly confident in both hires, as Ziegler clearly has the ability to build a winning team, helping to build many super bowl winning team, and McKenzie was a top general manager in his day before being screwed over by the Raiders, and is more than fit to be a scout.