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Sam Fioroni

NFL Staff Rumors: Livingston, Patriots, Titans

March 1st, 2025 at 4:13pm CST by Ely Allen

Robert Livingston has a long history in the NFL, all with the Bengals. He spent his first season away from the NFL since 2011 last year, and he was very close to returning, per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.

After his playing career as a safety at William & Mary ended in 2009, Livingston immediately turned to coaching, starting as the safeties coach at Furman in 2010. He spent the next season as a defensive quality control coach at Vanderbilt before heading to Cincinnati.

He started with the Bengals as a scout, holding the role for three years before making his way onto the coaching staff as defensive quality control. It only took one season for him to get promoted to safeties coach in Cincinnati, a role he held for eight years. Last year, he departed in order to accept his first defensive coordinator role under Deion Sanders in Boulder.

After leading the Buffaloes to rank 50th in total defense and 42nd in scoring defense, Livingston reportedly interviewed for the coordinator job under new head coach Kellen Moore in New Orleans. Breer tells us that, though he didn’t get the job, Livingston “made a real impression” on the Saints, giving Moore plenty to consider before he eventually selected Brandon Staley for the job. This bodes well for a potential return to the NFL as a coordinator for Livingston in the future.

Here are a couple other staff rumors from around the NFL:

  • Patriots director of pro personnel Pat Stewart has departed from the NFL to accept a general manager position with the University of Nebraska, per Pete Thamel of ESPN. Per Thamel’s colleague at ESPN, Mike Reiss, Sam Fioroni, last year’s assistant director of pro personnel for New England, could be a top candidate to fill the new vacancy.
  • Lastly, Dylan Autenrieth will make the in-state move from Vanderbilt to the Titans. The former assistant offensive line coach for the Commodores announced on his X account that he had been hired to a defensive quality control coaching role for Tennessee, making his NFL coaching debut.

NFL Staff Updates: Titans, Patriots, Hightower

August 2nd, 2024 at 10:02pm CST by Ely Allen

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.