MAY 20: Sosna’s title will be senior vice president of football operations, as first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. His duties will remain similar to the ones he held in Detroit, and as such he will be a lead figure in areas related to contract negotiations, salary cap management and the team’s analytics department.
MAY 19: The Commanders are adding a hot, young name to their front office to go along with a host of other new hires. To go along with relatively new ownership and a new coaching staff, new general manager Adam Peters is adding a strong piece to his front office staff in Brandon Sosna, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network.
Sosna, at 31 years old, is a fast-rising executive in the football world. A graduate of UPenn, Sosna began his front office work at the collegiate level with the Bearcats of Cincinnati. Starting at his hometown school in 2013, it took only three years for Sosna to be named chief of staff of the athletic department, a role in which he was responsible for organizing the search process that led to the hiring of head coach Luke Fickell.
Sosna broke into the NFL back in 2017 as a football administration intern with the Browns. It wasn’t long before he worked his way up to salary cap & contract analyst the following season. After dipping his toe in the NFL, Sosna was lured back to the University of Cincinnati in 2019, where he was granted the title of senior associate athletic director/chief revenue officer.
The USC Trojans poached Sosna later that year, hiring him as executive senior associate athletic director/chief of staff. In Los Angeles, Sosna was considered the athletic director’s right-hand man. Once again, he played a crucial role in the search that landed Lincoln Riley as the Trojans’ new head coach and reportedly played a key role in the school’s big move to the Big Ten Conference.
Most recently, though, the call of the NFL was too grand, and Sosna accepted a job as senior director, football administration for the Lions. Per Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Sosna served as the point man in contract negotiations in Detroit. While his title in Washington has not yet been announced, his role will be “high-ranking” and will likely utilize his contract analyst talents.
Garafolo also reported that, whatever the job is, Sosna was not the only one to interview for the role. Eagles vice president of football administration Jake Rosenberg was also considered after the team allowed his contact to expire in Philadelphia so that he could pursue other opportunities. Rosenberg has been credited for his assistance in the Eagles’ unique strategy of utilizing void years on contracts to reduce current salary cap obligations, something the team has been regarded as ahead of the curve on for some time.