Jon Robinson photographed at The Titans’ practice field
So when does Jon Robinson sleep?
“June,” the Tennessee Titans’ general manager offers gamely.
Robinson, 44, is relaxed — even soft-spoken — but thoughtful. It’s a bit off-putting, given that he operates in the often-macho supercharged world of professional football. His openness is even more of a shock considering the fact that he’s a protégé of New England Patriots coach and GM Bill Belichick, a man who makes Calvin Coolidge seem downright garrulous.
If the stress of the most important offseason in Two-Toner history is getting to Robinson, he doesn’t show it. It’s just a few weeks before the NFL Scouting Combine and a few more before the league’s free-agency period begins, which bumps right up against April’s draft. Still, he seems like he’s having a good time. With rain pouring outside, he casually punts a ball inside the team’s practice bubble at MetroCenter. It won’t make Brett Kern nervous, but it was a serviceable high wobbler.
Jon Robinson
Still, Robinson knows what he’s up against this spring. Two breakout players — quarterback Ryan Tannehill and running back Derrick Henry — are coming off performances that definitely merit raises, having led the team to a surprise run to the AFC Championship. Robinson plays it close to the vest, but allows himself a moment of humor.
“Yeah, there are a couple of players we might like to bring back,” he deadpans.
So how did a kid from Union City, Tenn. — who played football at Southeast Missouri State and coached at Nicholls State University in Louisiana — rise so quickly to being the most-watched general manager in the NFL?
“I don’t know,” he says. “When I was a coach at Nicholls State, I struck up a relationship with a scout from the Patriots.”
And with that, in 2002, he became an area scout for the Pats — the lowest rung on the administrative ladder in pro football. Robinson remembers once watching game film of a defensive lineman projected onto a bed sheet hanging in a school’s gym. But he stuck with it, impressed his bosses and rose to regional scout, assistant director of college scouting, and finally director of college scouting. In the latter role, he was charged with helping the Pats formulate their (notoriously successful) draft plans.
It was those long nights on the road, watching player footage in weird places, that gave Robinson special affection for those hidden gems — players like tight end Jonnu Smith, who’s grown from a fourth-round project to a top player, or safety Dane Cruickshank, a fifth-rounder who is now a special-teams monster. There’s also Anthony Firkser, the sure-handed undrafted tight end out of Harvard who made crucial catches in the playoffs and who, coincidentally, re-signed with the Titans the day after Robinson spoke to the Scene.
“It’s so gratifying for our scouting department,” says Robinson. “They spend a lot of time watching players without ever knowing if we are going to take them. It makes me really proud.”
After New England, Robinson joined Jason Licht — the scout who first noticed him at Nicholls State — in Tampa Bay to serve as the Bucs’ director of player personnel when Licht took the job as general manager.
In 2016, Robinson came home, in a manner of speaking, to manage the Titans.
“I’m from Tennessee. This team means everything.”
And that hometown feel is why Titans fans often run into Robinson at places where many general managers would never tread. Unusually among the 32 men who run pro football teams, Robinson loves to rub shoulders with the faithful, showing up at out-of-town bars for pregame parties, snapping selfies and talking shop with the folks from the bleachers.
“I want our fans to be proud of this team,” Robinson says. “They spend their hard-earned money on gear and on tickets. I owe it to them to show them love.”
No ivory-tower wheeler-dealer, Robinson mixes it up with the city he now calls home. It’s a sort of front-office analog to coach Mike Vrabel’s ritual of taking part in practice drills or doing pregame calisthenics. He also spends what little free time he can find to fundraise to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, a disease his oldest daughter lives with.
“The good Lord blessed us with a bigger shovel and a bigger voice,” he says. “We’re heavily involved to help those who don’t have that voice.”
The kid from Union City who got into the business never thinking he could be a GM — “I just wanted to be a good scout,” he says — comes to work whistling every day.
“I have a blast,” he says. “I’ve never grumbled. I truly love what I do.”
