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January 22, 2025 • 12 mins
Amie Wells gets to know Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi on the OTP, presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans.

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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans.
When it's game day for your health coverage, trust Farm
Bureau Health Plans to drop a winning play for you.
They've been covering Tennesseeans for nearly eighty years.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thank you for joining us on the OTP.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm Amy Wells and we are joined by new Titans
general manager Mike Borganzi. Mike, thank you for taking the
time to chat with us.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thank you, Amy. Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hey? Does sound good?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Does it does?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
It's your very first day here and you've been moving
around doing all kinds of different things. Early has it
set in that you're the guy, you're the general manager
of an NFL team.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's starting to you know.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
I first got to my office today and they started
to set some the computers up and I kind of
got my bearings around the building. It's finally starting to
set in. But it's been a whirlwind these these last
three days for.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Me and my family, but very exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
As you went through the interview process. What was it
about the Titans organization that felt right, that felt like home?

Speaker 4 (01:11):
You know, when I left my interview last week, I
called my wife on the way home, and I just felt,
like I said to Jill, I said, this feels like
the right place for me. You know, I met Amy,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
So it's great.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
It checked all the boxes for me. It's great ownership,
it's a great fan base, there's great people in this building,
and it's Nashville. And I think that was a big
priority for me if I was ever going to leave
Kansas City, a place that I love and my family loves,
it has to be the right fit for them. And
you know, I've heard so many great things about Nashville,

(01:44):
and you know, I just can't wait to get here
with the entire family and get into the community.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Chad Brinker said that you literally thought of every aspect
of becoming a general manager. So my question is how
long have you been thinking about this and preparing for
this opportunity.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
You know, I think for a long time.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
The way I came up in the business, I hit
every step along the way, so I would always document
the things that I did, whether that's college scouting, pro scouting.
I worked in operations, and then as I started to
move up in leadership roles, so I'd probably say about
five six years ago, I really started to put things
together into like a book and to formulate all my ideas.
So it's been an ongoing process, but I think the

(02:25):
way I came up in the business, it was very
easy for me to put it together.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Another person who documents a lot of things is Brian Callahan.
When you guys were able to interact throughout the interview process,
what was it about him and his style that really
resonated with you?

Speaker 4 (02:41):
You know, I think I hit it right off with
Brian right away. I've known him for a long time.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
He worked in Denver when I was with Kansas City,
so we had a lot of battles there, and then
of course he went to Cincinnati and with Joe Burrow
and we had a lot of battles there. They actually
probably won more than we did against them. But I
just always had the respect for him from afar. You know,
the type of offense that he that he implements, the

(03:07):
things I heard about how he communicates.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
With players and treats players.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
We're all appealing to me and we've had great conversations
so far.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
This is a relatively young staff from a experience in
their current position standpoint. Chad Brinker is relatively new to
his role coach Callahan obviously in his second year as
head coach, and you and your first year's general manager.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Is that something that's.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Really appealing to you because you guys are going to
be able to build this thing together.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
Absolutely, And that was really appealing to me. You know
the fact that I've known Chad for fifteen years. We
had similar paths coming up in the business, and the
same thing with Brian too. So now it's an opportunity.
We've kind of hit every step. We're ready for that
next opportunity, and now we have three people that really

(03:56):
want to do it together. And I couldn't be more
excited for the opportunity to do that.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's a lot of experience within the National Football League
to pool from. Yeah, So tell me about your experience
as a full back.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
You played full back at Brown University.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Do you remember having a time when you were in
college thinking, man, football is going to be my career
for a long time.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Was that ever a thought for you?

Speaker 4 (04:23):
It was, you know, and I thought I was trying
to play after college. I had that dream of playing
in the NFL. I had some try out, some workouts.
I was never signed, But yeah, I mean football has
been my entire life since I was seven years old.
I grew up in a craze football town. You know,
every day we woke up, we thought about football. My

(04:44):
whole house wild was a crazed football My brother's a
coach in the NFL, So it was just kind of
in our blood that, yeah, that's what I wanted to do.
When you know, I didn't know I was going to
get to this step, but I knew I.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Was going to be involved in football somehow.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
You spend a little bit of time in college working
and recruiting and in that space, was that a natural
springboard to personnel work in the NFL?

Speaker 4 (05:06):
It was because that was my first experience really as
a team builder, evaluating, you know, high school players to
try to build up the roster at Boston College when
I was there, and I had the opportunity. When I
was there, I was the liaison with the team, so
I would talk to a lot of the scouts that
would come through the building.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I want to do.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
At the highest level, and I was fortunate enough to
get a job a couple of years later in Kansas City.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Now, when you started at Kansas City, this was sixteen
seasons ago. It was not the team that we know today,
one that's on their way to their what seventh AFC
Championship game. What did you learn through the experience of
having to really build a team.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't all like you're talking about
seven straight AFC championship games. You know, we had the
first pick in the draft at one point in twenty thirteen,
we were two and fourteen.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
We weren't a very good football team.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Experience for me and we kind of built it from
the ground up is that you need to have the
right people in the building to do it, the right processes,
and then the right type of player too. It's not
just we always say we're trying to build the right
fifty three. It's the talent, of course, but it's also
the character piece too.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
So those are things I learned along the way.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
To build a winning culture, you need talent plus character
and that was a big lesson for me as I learned,
and we kind of built that through the draft.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
We were in.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Kansas City, and of course we had free agents as well,
but the majority of it, we built that culture through
the draft off of some of the things that we
wanted to see in players. Not only talent, but the.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Character piece what's harder to learn. How to evaluate talent
or character.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
We always say, you know, character is human behaviors is
the most difficult thing to predict. So it's definitely the
character part. So you know, we send our scouts into
schools and their cont talking to their sources and getting
background information on them, and that we have a chance
to meet with them at the All Star Games, and

(07:06):
then we do our own homework for coaches that have coached.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Them in college.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
But it's certainly difficult, but that's such an important piece
of it when you're trying to.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Build a team.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
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(07:38):
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and get your favorites delivered today. Delivery fees apply. Now
back to the OTP. You mentioned earlier that you've worked
in every single step of being in personnel.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
You've really worked your way up one step at a time.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
So does that put you in a really good position
to hit the ground running now and really just get
started here in Tennessee.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
I think so, you know, because I've gone through every process,
so I know how it works. So you know, any
person at any level in the organization come to me
in the personnel department, and I would like to think
I have the answer for them, you know, just just
hitting every step in pro and college. And then I
also did operations for a year where I communicated with
a lot of different departments. So you know, I think

(08:28):
that's really you know, benefited me for you know, for
the position I'm in now.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
You've spent a lot of time working with Kansas City
current general manager Brent Veach.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Yeah, how is.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
He going to influence the way that you approach this role?

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (08:41):
So Brett and I have been friends for a long time.
He is relentless on trying to improve the roster. So
those are the things that you know, I get text
message at one two o'clock in the morning about a
guy that might be you know, we need to work out.
So like those type of things like just have it's
it's all year round, trying to upgrade the roster and

(09:01):
fix it however you can through the draft, free agency,
it might be trades, it might be waiver claims.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
So that that's had a big influence on me.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
We've heard the philosophy over and over again. Draft, develop, retain,
What exactly does that mean and why is that so
fundamental to building a successful team.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
Well, when I talked about culture, and that's a big
part of it. When you're drafting players and then you're
developing them into your system, you want to build a
foundation of homegrown talent on the roster, and we were
able to do that in Kansas City, so at one point,
you know, there was a standard there. So anytime we
brought in a new rookie class or a free agent,

(09:44):
there's a.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Certain way to practice. There's a certain way to treat people.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
And that also helps out down the road with salary
cap flexibility too as well, because you have to be
cognizant of that. So drafting every year is an important
part of that.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
When you walk into the room, what people see because
of your resume is the Kansas City Chiefs and Super Bowls.
Is that a big weight to bear walking into a
new role.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know, I don't think so. I view this as
a new challenge. You know, this isn't Kansas City anymore,
completely different. We don't have the same players, and I
was there before when we didn't have those players. You know,
I don't think there's any more pressure on me to
do that. I mean, there's always pressure to win in
this league and to get it fixed. But I see
this as a new opportunity, a new challenge that I'm
ready to dive into.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
You've talked a lot about culture and developing culture. Is
that the key to building not just success, but sustained success?

Speaker 4 (10:36):
Yes, I definitely do, because it's the daily habits of
everybody in the building, from the personnel to the coaching
to the players. Like when we were in Kansas City,
there was a certain way to do things and everybody
knew that and everybody lived up to that standard, or
you wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Be there anymore. Its simple as that. But yeah, no,
culture is everything.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
The Titans having the number one pick in the NFL Draft.
The Titans have a fair amount of cap room right now.
Is that a lot of exciting opportunity to have all
at once.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, it is, and we're diving right into it. This week.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
We're going to be down to the East West in
the Senior Bowl and then we'll have a chance to
evaluate the draft class and free agency. So yeah, it's
an exciting opportunity. I was there before we had a
number one pick and it was exciting, so.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
It definitely is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
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(11:48):
to draw up a winning play for you. They've been
covering Tennesseeans for nearly eighty years. Now back to the OTP.
Now that you're here in Nashville, before you go to
the All Star Games and start that whirlwind, what's the
first step.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Here to get to know everybody in the building, and
I've started that process today. But to me, that's the
most important part, is to start really building relationships with
everyone in the building.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
So that's priority number one for me.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Mike Borgonzi, welcome to Tennessee. Thank you so much for
taking the time. Thank you, Amy, it's great to be
here for Mike Borganzi.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
I'm Amy Wells and this is the OTP
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