Kalan Reed

Titans Make Front Office Changes

Earlier this month, the Titans announced several changes to their front office staff. The team’s senior writer/editor Jim Wyatt detailed a number of promotions and new hires that pertain to the areas of staff that we cover.

To start, we already reported on Tennessee’s hiring of former Pitt director of college scouting Alex Kline, but at that time, we were unaware of what role on staff he would end up playing. Wyatt tells us that Kline will serve the Titans as a scouting assistant in 2025. He’ll be joined in the position with fellow new hire Geo Leins. Leins also originally came out of college with recruiting roles at Campbell, UCLA, Wake Forest, and NC State. He debuted in the NFL in 2023 as a scouting assistant with the Dolphins but heads now to Nashville.

The only other new hire in the scouting department is Jack Turner. After operations internships with Wake Forest and the Chiefs, Turner found an operations job at Davidson College. He left for a recruiting internship, again with the Demon Deacons, before getting a recruiting analyst job at Michigan. He’ll work his first full-time job in the NFL as an NFS scout for the Titans.

The scouting department also saw five promotions with Tennessee elevating Jon Salge to director of player personnel, Kevin Turks to director of pro personnel, Mike Boni to assistant director of college scouting, Kalan Reed to college scout, and Keenan Agnew to pro scout.

Salge is entering his 20th season with the Titans. Starting with the team as a scouting assistant, he’s worked his way up through the ranks as a college scout before eventually being named director of college scouting, a role he’s held for the past eight seasons. Turks joined the team in 2015 as a pro scout following time in Chicago as a scout and director of pro personnel. He was promoted after three years to assistant director of pro personnel in Tennessee and was invited to participate in the league’s Front Office & General Manager Accelerator program in 2023.

Boni, like Salge, also has 19 years of NFL experience but only has eight with the Titans. After coaching attempts at the high school and Division III college levels, Boni turned to scouting in 2006 spending a year as pro personnel administrator and a year as college scouting administrator with the Bills. In 2008, Boni departed for Arizona, working as an NFS scout to start for two years before seven as an east area scout. He started with the Titans in 2018 as a college scout before moving up to national scout in 2019, a role he held for five years before being named senior national scout last year.

Reed is a former cornerback whom the Titans actually made Mr. Irrelevant in 2016. A career-ending neck injury brought his playing career to a close, but in 2023, he joined the team that drafted him as a personnel scout after an NFL Legends fellowship. Agnew joined the team last year as a scouting assistant following the conclusion of his playing career at Southern Illinois. He’s the son of Lions assistant general manager Ray Agnew and the brother of Jets pro scout Ray Agnew III.

Lastly, the analytics department also saw two promotions as Rob Riederer was named director of game management & strategic initiatives and Erin Psajdl Davis was named football research & development coordinator.

After his collegiate playing career, Riederer started with the Titans as a scouting assistant, working his way up to pro scouting coordinator at one point. Last year saw a shift in focus as Riederer was named assistant director of football strategy. His newfound career in analytics has paid off with this promotion. Psajdl Davis joined the team last year as a data analyst. She started in the NFL in the same role with the Texans for two years before spending the 2023 season as a data scientist with the Chiefs. Unlike her first two position changes, this move up will keep Psajdl Davis with the same team.

NFL Staff Updates: Titans, Patriots, Hightower

The Titans announced a number of new hires and promotions within their front office staff recently. While we had already reported on a number of these, there were a few updates that we were not yet aware of.

Dale Thompson has been promoted to assistant director, college scouting. He’s in his 14th year with the team after breaking into the league doing pro scouting for the Seahawks. Mical Johnson earns a promotion to become the pro scouting coordinator. She served most recently as a scouting assistant in Tennessee. Mike Boni will move up to senior national scout in his eighth year with the Titans. He brings 19 years of NFL experience to the position.

Two more scouts earned promotions as former pro scout Brandon Taylor becomes a college scout for the southeast region and Kalan Reed becomes a personnel scout. Once made Mr. Irrelevant by the Titans in 2016, Reed is now making his name in the scouting world.

Here are a few other teams with recent staff updates:

  • The Patriots also made some recent additions and promotions, per their team website. A.J. Richardson and Landon Simpson join the team as new scouting assistants. Both come from the collegiate ranks with Richardson joining from Mizzou and Simpson coming from Miami (FL). Richardson was a personnel scouting assistant for the Tigers after spending a couple years as a receiver trying to make rosters in the NFL. Simpson was the coordinator of player personnel/head coach recruiting analyst for the Hurricanes. They can thank Marquis Dickerson for the open positions after he vacated one of them due to a promotion to pro scout. Dickerson takes the job of Sam Fioroni, who was promoted to assistant director of pro personnel. Pat Stewart earned a bigger promotion, still. He’ll now serve as director of pro personnel after returning to the team two years ago as a senior personnel advisor. The veteran Patriots scout spent part of the interim time with the Panthers, where he worked his way as high as vice president of player personnel.
  • We had announced that former wide receivers coach Troy Brown was sticking around, as is pass rushing consultant Joe Kim. While neither were included as part of the new staff announcement, they have reportedly been confirmed to be working with the team in skill-development roles, per ESPN’s Mike Reiss. Lastly, we had previously noted that former linebacker Dont’a Hightower would be working with outside linebackers, but the most recent information indicates that he’ll work with inside ‘backers, instead.

Possible Career-Ending Injury For Seahawks CB Kalan Reed

Seahawks cornerback Kalan Reed may be forced to retire after suffering a serious neck injury, agent Harold Lewis tells NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). The Seahawks already placed Reed on injured reserve, but it sounds like this will be a career-ender as well.

Reed went down in the Seahawks’ preseason game against the Vikings earlier this month and injured his third and fourth vertebrae in the process. Doctors have since advised him that attempting to play again would put him in serious jeopardy, especially since he experienced numbness afterwards.

Reed entered the league in 2016 as a seventh-round pick of the Titans. He appeared in seven games over two seasons in Tennessee before hooking on with Seattle’s practice squad last year. Last year, he earned a promotion to the varsity squad, but did not see the field. This year, he was hoping to make the 53-man cut, but he’ll have to focus on other endeavors from here on out.

We wish Reed the best in his recovery.

Minor NFL Transactions: 8/27/19

It was a busy day in the NFL as teams made early cuts in advance of the 53-man deadline. We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:

Atlanta Falcons

Arizona Cardinals

  • Signed: OL Jacob Ohnesorge

Baltimore Ravens

Detroit Lions

Kansas City Chiefs

New England Patriots

Philadelphia Eagles

Pittsburgh Steelers

San Francisco 49ers

Seattle Seahawks

Seahawks OT George Fant Signs RFA Tender

Seahawks offensive tackle George Fant has signed his second-round restricted free agent tender, while defensive end Quinton Jefferson has signed his original round RFA tender, according to the NFL’s transaction wire.

A collegiate basketball player with only one year of NCAA football experience (which came as a tight end), Fant went undrafted in 2016 but still managed to start 10 games during his rookie campaign in Seattle. A torn ACL cost Fant the 2017 season, but he rebounded to appear in all 16 games and play 35% of the Seahawks’ offensive snaps in 2018.

Fant, who will now collect a $3.095MM base salary next year, graded out well in 2018, with Pro Football Focus ranking him as the No. 26 offensive tackle among 80 qualifiers. While he won’t be locked in as a starter heading into next season, Fant could compete with former fist-round pick Germain Ifedi for playing time at right tackle.

In addition to Fant and Jefferson, the Seahawks have also re-signed the following exclusive rights free agents:

RFA/ERFA Tender Decisions: 3/13/19

Here is the latest news involving restricted free agents and exclusive-rights free agents, with updates coming throughout the day:

ERFA

Tendered:

Non-tendered:

RFA

Tendered at second-round level: 

Tendered at original-round level:

Non-tendered: 

Minor NFL Transactions: 11/6/18

Today’s minor moves:

Los Angeles Rams

New York Giants

New England Patriots

Philadelphia Eagles

Seattle Seahawks

NFL Workout Updates: 10/2/18

Today’s workout updates, with all links going to veteran Howard Balzer’s Twitter account unless otherwise noted:

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Cleveland Browns

Denver Broncos

Detroit Lions

Green Bay Packers

Houston Texans

Jacksonville Jaguars

Los Angeles Chargers

Los Angeles Rams

Miami Dolphins

Minnesota Vikings

New England Patriots

  • T Andrew Nelson (link)

New Orleans Saints

New York Jets

Oakland Raiders

Pittsburgh Steelers

Seattle Seahawks

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tennessee Titans

NFL Workout Updates: 9/25/18

Here’s the latest from the workout circuit, all links going to NFL reporter Howard Balzer’s Twitter account unless otherwise noted.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens

Chicago Bears

Cleveland Browns

Detroit Lions

Houston Texans

Jacksonville Jaguars

Los Angeles Chargers

New England Patriots

San Francisco 49ers

Seattle Seahawks

  • C Dillon Day, T Gerhard de Beer, T Christian DiLauro, DT David Parry (link)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

  • T Christian DiLauro (link)

Tennessee Titans

NFL Workout Updates: 9/24/18

Today’s workout updates are below. There were some notable names, including veteran quarterback Landry Jones, who was released by the Steelers at final cuts.

Cleveland Browns

Indianapolis Colts

New England Patriots

New York Jets

Looks like the Browns are searching for defensive help, working out a slew of players on that side of the ball. Jones working out for the Patriots is interesting, as he isn’t really young enough to be seen as a developmental project, and Brian Hoyer is entrenched as Tom Brady‘s backup.