Two Front Office Staffers Seen as GM Candidates

Ryan Cowden has been with the Titans for five year; Monti Ossenfort came on board last offseason.

Every year the roster changes as free agents come and go and draft picks are added.

Often, the coaching staff is shuffled either because assistants accept better opportunities elsewhere or the head coach determines a different approach is required.

This offseason, the Tennessee Titans might also have to fill some holes in the front office. SI.com senior reporter Albert Breer has revealed his annual list of 12 leading candidates to become NFL general managers in 2021, and it includes two members of Jon Robinson’s personnel staff.

Ryan Cowden is Tennessee’s Vice President of Player Personnel and has been second-in-command for all five seasons since Robinson became general manager. He spent two seasons as Director of Player Personnel before he was promoted. He rose through the ranks during 16 years in the Carolina Panthers’ scouting department, a path similar to the one Robinson traveled with the New England Patriots.

Breer wrote:

Cowden’s been GM Jon Robinson’s top lieutenant for five years—and Tennessee’s going to finish this year with its fourth winning season in that stretch and is very much ascending. He’s now got those five years of in-the-office experience and was a road scout in Carolina before then. The expectation is he’ll be a very real candidate for the Washington GM job, given his five years of experience having worked with Ron Rivera with the Panthers.

Monti Ossenfort was hired as Director of Player Personnel last spring, the first to fill that role after Cowden’s 2018 promotion. He spent the previous 15 years in New England’s scouting department, and in 2014 was named scouting director after Robinson left the Patriots for a job in Tampa Bay’s front office. Ossenfort was a finalist last offseason in Cleveland’s search for a general manager.

Breer wrote:

Ossenfort won three rings as Bill Belichick’s college scouting director, and made the move to Nashville last year after having an interview with the Texans blocked two years ago and interviewing in Cleveland last January. His path might wind up being similar to his boss’s—Jon Robinson was Patriots college scouting director (Ossenfort actually replaced him there), left for Tampa in 2014, spent two years there, then became Titans GM.