Marc Richards

Chiefs Promote Mike Bradway, Chris Shea To Assistant GM

This offseason saw the Chiefs lose assistant general manager Mike Borgonzi as he earned his first general manager role with the Titans. In the wake of Borgonzi’s exit, Kansas City made a number of promotions, using two of them to fill Borgonzi’s vacated role, per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.

The assistant general manager role will now officially be shared by Mike Bradway and Chris Shea. Bradway joined the organization in 2018 after 10 years in the Eagles front office. He made a lateral move to join the team his father, former Jets general manager Terry Bradway, worked for from 1992-2000, accepting the assistant director of personnel position. In 2020, he shared the assistant director of player personnel role with current Bears general manager Ryan Poles, getting promoted to director in 2021. He’s served the last three seasons as senior director of player personnel and is now a step closer to following in his father’s footsteps of landing a general manager job.

A licensed attorney in the state of New York, Shea has worked in football for 34 years, starting as a coach in minor roles at Boston College and Harvard before shifting to recruiting in a return to Boston College, where he earned his Bachelors. He also spent time as an operations/equipment intern in the Panthers’ inaugural season. While earning his law degree at Hofstra, Shea returned to the NFL, serving as a pro personnel assistant for the Jets then a scouting consultant for the Cowboys. For a short time after, Shea worked for the NFL Management Council, focusing on player grievances and litigation.

In 2008, Shea return to a front office role, joining the Dolphins and serving as player personnel coordinator, player personnel administrator, and eventually, assistant director of pro personnel. Utilizing his scouting and legal experience, Shea coordinated scouting, legal, salary cap management, information technology, and analytics efforts for the Dolphins. He then joined the Eagles as director of scouting administration/strategic management in 2015 before changing his focus from strategic management to personnel scout for the two following seasons.

Shea joined Bradway in his leaving the Eagles for Kansas City in 2018. He served three years as football operations counsel and personnel executive, three years as vice president of football operations/team counsel, and last year as senior vice president of football operations and strategy. Based on their different areas of expertise and experience, it looks like Bradway will focus more on the scouting side of things as assistant GM while Shea focuses on a litany of areas ranging from salary cap management to analytics in his role as assistant GM.

In addition to the promotions of Bradway and Shea, the Chiefs saw two slightly more nominal promotions as Tim Terry and Ryne Nutt both were elevated to vice president of player personnel. Terry and Nutt were already in position as directors of player personnel with Terry’s focus on pro personnel and Nutt’s focus on college scouting. While the promotions aren’t likely to change their responsibilities with the team, the title change probably serves as an opportunity to give each staffer a substantial raise.

The Chiefs also reportedly hired Dru Grigson to serve in the role of senior college/pro executive. The son of Vikings senior vice president of player personnel Ryan Grigson, Grigson will rejoin an NFL front office after seemingly sitting out the 2024 NFL season following his parting of ways with the Cardinals, where he last worked as player personnel director.

Lastly, Breer reports that the Chiefs have promoted Marc Richards from football research analyst to director of football research and development. Richards previously worked in the NBA in the strategic planning group in basketball operations for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He joined the Chiefs in his prior role in 2022.

NFL Staff Notes: Eagles, Warren, Bears, Chiefs

This weekend, the Eagles announced several title changes and new hires in their personnel and operations departments. Philadelphia lost six staffers this offseason.

Some of the Eagles’ corresponding moves we haven’t yet covered are as follows. Former-senior director of football transactions Bryce Johnston was promoted to vice president of football transactions and strategic planning. Former-assistant of analytics James Gilman was promoted to director of football analytics. Former-senior pro scout Jeff Scott was promoted to director of football operations. Former-football analytics coordinator Jon Liu was promoted to assistant director of football analytics. Former assistant strength and conditioning coach Patrick McDowell moved departments to become the player development assistant/scout. Pro scout Ameena Soliman was promoted to director of personnel operations/pro scout. Former-college scout (Northeast area) Matt Holland was promoted to senior college/pro scout.

The following are new hires announced by the Eagles that we haven’t covered. In operations, Zach Drapkin was hired as a quantitative analyst. In scouting, Jarrod Kilburn was hired as a college/pro scout.

Here are a few other staff notes from around the NFL, starting with the freshly-named Commanders:

  • According to Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post, legendary tight end and current-senior pro scout Don Warren will retire this week. Warren won three Super Bowls during his 14 seasons as a player in Washington. 13 years after his retirement from playing, Warren returned to Washington as a scout. After five years in that role, Warren joined the Panthers as a scout, where he stayed for ten years. Warren returned to Washington for the final two years of his career in 2020.
  • The Bears have hired the Chiefs’ senior data scientist, Krithi Chandrakasan, away from Kansas City to assume the role of director of football analytics in Chicago. To fill Chandrakasan’s now-vacant role, the Chiefs hired Marc Richards in the role of football research analyst, all according to ESPN’s Seth Walder. Walder adds that Richards was a part of the winning team in the 2021 Big Data Bowl. The Big Data Bowl is an annual analytics competition for college students and professionals in the league. The contest challenges participants to spur innovations in the ever-evolving world of NFL advanced analytics.