General manager interviews are beginning to roll in for the New York Jets. One of the first names to emerge was Jon Robinson, former general manager of the Tennessee Titans.
What does Robinson bring to the table as a candidate? Let’s unpack his resume.
Job history
- General manager, Tennessee Titans (2016-22)
- Director of player personnel, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2013-15)
- Director of college scouting, New England Patriots (2009-12)
- Assistant director of college scouting, New England Patriots (2008)
- Regional scout, New England Patriots (2006-07)
- Area scout, New England Patriots (2002-05)
Robinson, 48, spent seven years as the Tennessee Titans’ general manager. Since being fired by the team late in the 2022 season, he has been out of the NFL.
During Robinson’s tenure as the Buccaneers’ director of player personnel, the Buccaneers went 12-36. However, during this stretch, Tampa Bay drafted four key long-term pieces who went on to start for the team during their 2020 Super Bowl run: William Gholston (2013 fourth-round pick), Mike Evans (2014 first-round pick), Donovan Smith (2015 second-round pick), and Ali Marpet (2015 second-round pick).
Robinson came up in the NFL as a member of the Patriots’ scouting staff throughout the heart of the Brady-Belichick era. He spent 11 seasons in New England, earning three promotions in the process. Robinson primarily focused on college scouting, eventually rising to the role of New England’s director of college scouting from 2009-12. Over this span, the Patriots drafted numerous long-term starters who would anchor the team throughout the 2010s, including Julian Edelman, Sebastian Vollmer, Patrick Chung, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Nate Solder, Marcus Cannon, Chandler Jones, and Dont’a Hightower.
Titans resume
During Robinson’s tenure, Tennessee compiled a record of 66-48 (including five losses after his firing in late 2022).
The Titans recorded a winning record in each of Robinson’s first six seasons, winning two AFC South titles and making four playoff appearances. They went 3-4 in the playoffs, advancing to the divisional round three times and making a run to the AFC championship game in 2019.
NFL Draft
Robinson’s draft record with the Titans is a tale of two distinct stretches. His first four drafts were strong, setting the Titans up for a multi-year run of serious contention in the AFC. However, his final three drafts were brutal, ultimately leading to his firing and burying the team in the hole it finds itself in today.
From 2016-19, Robinson nailed a plethora of selections that turned into core starters for the successful 2019-21 Titans teams:
- OT Jack Conklin (2016, R1)
- RB Derrick Henry (2016, R2)
- S Kevin Byard (2016, R3)
- CB Adoree’ Jackson (2017, R1)
- TE Jonnu Smith (2017, R3)
- LB Jayon Brown (2017, R5)
- LB Rashaan Evans (2018, R1)
- EDGE Harold Landry (2018, R2)
- DT Jeffery Simmons (2019, R1)
- WR A.J. Brown (2019, R2)
- G Nate Davis (2019, R3)
He also selected quality depth pieces such as nose tackle Austin Johnson (R2, 2016), wide receiver Tajae Sharpe (R5, 2016), cornerback LeShaun Sims (R5, 2016), and safety Amani Hooker (R4, 2019). Corey Davis (R1, 2017) was a solid starting receiver for the team, although he did not live up to his top-five status.
Robinson’s first four drafts were impressive work. While his Day 3 success was limited, Robinson maximized the Titans’ Day 1-2 picks at a tremendous rate, building a homegrown core for a team that won 32 regular season games, made two divisional round trips, and earned a No. 1 seed from 2019-21.
Robinson’s final three drafts were a completely different story. Only three of the 23 players selected by Robinson from 2020-22 started for Tennessee in Week 1 of the 2024 season: tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo, tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere, and guard Dillon Radunz, each of whom are low-ranked players at their respective positions.
Radunz is the only player from Tennessee’s 2020 and 2021 draft classes who remains on the team. The entire 2020 draft class is gone.
This run will get any GM fired.
Over his initial run of success, Robinson’s bread-and-butter was capitalizing on the early picks, which made up for his lack of hidden gems in the very late stages of the draft. From 2020-22, he began striking out on the early picks, namely with three huge busts in the first round: Isaiah Wilson, Caleb Farley, and Treylon Burks. Meanwhile, his late-round woes persisted.
With no late-round gems to make up for his early-round whiffs, Robinson’s 2020-22 classes were total duds, setting the franchise back for years.
Free agency
Robinson’s aggressiveness on the free agent market was fluctuant throughout his tenure.
According to Spotrac, the Titans had an average ranking of 14th in total free agent spending (based on total contract value) across the seven offseasons from 2016-22. There were two seasons where Tennessee ranked top-five in free agent spending (third in 2018 and fourth in 2021) and two where the Titans ranked bottom-10 (24th in 2020 and 29th in 2022).
Robinson found some quality starters in free agency, including center Ben Jones (2016), cornerback Logan Ryan (2017), and guard Rodger Saffold (2019). However, he whiffed on his two most expensive outside signings: cornerback Malcolm Butler ($30M GTD, 2018) and edge rusher Bud Dupree ($35M GTD, 2021).
Butler spent three seasons as a starter in Tennessee but did not live up to his deal, allowing 15 touchdowns and 2,089 yards in coverage. Dupree only had seven sacks and 53 total pressures in two seasons before getting released.
Trades
Robinson began his career with one of the biggest draft deals in recent memory, setting the tone for him to rebuild the Titans’ core.
Tennessee had earned the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NFL draft but did not need a quarterback due to their 2015 selection of Marcus Mariota. So, Robinson dealt the pick to the Los Angeles Rams, moving down to No. 15 while netting two second-round picks and a third-round pick in 2016 on top of first- and third-round selections in 2017. The trade ultimately netted Jack Conklin, Derrick Henry, Austin Johnson, Corey Davis, and Jonnu Smith.
Robinson developed a penchant for trading up in subsequent drafts. He moved up 11 spots in the 2017 third round to draft Taywan Taylor, three spots in the 2018 first round for Rashaan Evans, 16 spots in the 2018 second round for Harold Landry, and five spots in the 2019 fourth round for Amani Hooker (in a deal that sent two picks back to the Jets, which became Trevon Wesco and Blake Cashman).
Robinson’s most notable trade for a veteran player occurred in 2019, when he sent a 2019 seventh-round pick and a 2020 fourth-round pick to Miami in exchange for a 2019 sixth-round pick and Ryan Tannehill. By mid-season of 2019, Tannehill became the Titans’ starting quarterback, sparking a run that sent them to the AFC championship game. Tannehill would serve as the Titans’ starter for four more seasons, signing a four-year, $118 million extension in 2020.
In 2021, Robinson dealt a 2022 second-round pick and a 2023 fourth-round pick to the Falcons for Julio Jones (and a 2023 sixth-round pick), looking to capitalize on Tennessee’s window of contention. It turned out to be a poor value, as the 32-year-old Jones only posted 434 yards and one touchdown in 10 games.
The last big trade of Robinson’s tenure came on draft day in 2022, when he sent a disgruntled A.J. Brown to the Eagles for the 18th and 101st overall picks. Robinson tried to replace Brown by using the 18th overall pick on wide receiver Treylon Burks, who turned out to be a bust.
Behind the times
One of the biggest concerns on Robinson’s resume is his apparent unwillingness to adapt to modern team-building philosophies.
On October 6, 2021, ESPN released the results from a survey of 22 analytics staffers around the league, each with a different team. Robinson’s Titans were voted as the “least analytically advanced” team in the NFL, earning eight votes – double any other team.
In the same survey released one later, Tennessee remained in the top spot of the same category, earning just one fewer vote than the prior season.
Tennessee did not have a staffer with an analytics title until August 2021, making them the last NFL team to appoint one.
Speaking to the media in July 2022, Robinson admitted he is not a big fan of analytics.
“We incorporate some analytical data into some of the decisions we make, but I’d say 90% of the decisions we make, we put the film on and watch the guy play football. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Does the guy play football well? He has to play football. Let’s not look at a bunch of numbers.”
While Robinson said that analytics played a role in his decision-making, he affirmed that he believes the eye test trumps the numbers.
“There’s a part of that [analytics] that plays into it. I’m not some 1960s G.M. here. I get it. But there’s a balance there. At the end of the day, we come back to the film. Is the guy good at playing football? If he is, we want to try to get that guy on our team. Whatever the numbers and metrics say, at the end of the day, the film and that evaluation is probably the most important thing.”
Given the Titans’ rapid downfall and horrid drafting from 2020-22, it’s safe to say that Robinson could have benefited from a greater reliance on analytics during his tenure. Perhaps this explains Robinson’s track record in the draft. He did well early in his career while the NFL analytics wave was in its infant stages, but when the movement began exploding in the 2020s, Robinson fell behind the curve.
Having a GM who values analytics is important in this day and age. Each year, teams rely more heavily on data to influence their decisions. If you are not caught up with the times, it is a competitive disadvantage. Plain and simple. Nobody is claiming that teams should abandon watching the film or using their gut – there always will and always must be a place for those things in football – but if quantitative analysis is not playing a role in your decision-making, it will likely hurt in the long run, just as it did for Robinson and the Titans.
When he interviews with the Jets and other NFL teams this year, Robinson needs to prove that he has grown in this particular area. Not every GM needs to be Kwesi Adofo-Mensah (who rose from a Princeton economics grad and Wall Street trader with no football experience to GM of the Vikings), but if you are blatantly ignoring information that can help you make better decisions, you shouldn’t be in charge of making roster decisions for an NFL team in 2025.
