The Eagles front office exec who built two playoff teams

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When the Chiefs and Browns meet in the playoffs Sunday, both teams will have the imprint of the same general manager.

Who now works for the Eagles.

John Dorsey, who spent this past year as a consultant in the Eagles’ scouting department, was general manager of the Chiefs from 2013 through 2016 and the Browns from 2017 through 2019.

He delivered both franchises a number of the star players that helped them reach the AFC conference semifinal round. 

And then they both fired him.

Dorsey, 60, spent six years in the 1980s as a linebacker with the Packers before going into scouting under legendary Packers GM Ron Wolf in 1991. 

It was in Green Bay where Dorsey first met Andy Reid, who joined Mike Holmgren’s staff in 1992. Reid and Dorsey were together for seven years until Holmgren and Dorsey left for Seattle in 1999 and Reid became head coach of the Eagles.

Dorsey returned to Green Bay in 2000, but when the Chiefs fired both head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli after the 2012 season, it opened up the door for Reid and Dorsey to reunite in Kansas City.

Dorsey spent four years as the Chiefs’ general manager, a period where the Chiefs went 43-21 and reached the playoffs three times. 

Although he stocked the Chiefs’ roster with tons of talent, he was fired in the spring of 2017 for reasons that have never been made public and soon hired as GM of the Browns.

Why did the Chiefs fire Dorsey?

“I’m friends with John,” Reid said in a 2018 story in the Canton (Ohio) Repository newspaper before the Browns faced the Chiefs. “I'll leave it at that. Things happen.”

In Cleveland, Dorsey again found a number of players who helped the Browns turn things around under Kevin Stefanski, a one-time Eagles coaching intern at Lehigh. 

And again he was fired.

“John is a great man -- a great family man -- and a really good personnel man,” Stefanski said of Dorsey in an interview this week with the Associated Press. “Just look at both of our teams. A lot of players on this team I recognize are guys John brought in, so I think very highly of him."
 
With Dorsey out of work, Howie Roseman invited him to spend the year as a consultant with the Eagles, scouting college and pro players and adding a new voice to the Eagles’ front office.

“John is a great football mind,” Reid said of Dorsey last year before the Super Bowl. “He knows talent. He brought in a lot of guys who maybe weren’t big names, but he saw something in them and they turned out to be good for us. He’s old-school football. He loves the game. That’s pretty obvious. He’s a gritty guy. I came to appreciate that about him. He would bring you a tough football player. Sometimes that’s a little harder to find these days.”

Although Reid has credited current Chiefs GM Brett Veach - who was also with him in Philly - as the guy who discovered Patrick Mahomes, he was drafted on Dorsey’s watch, and Dorsey was involved at least to some extent.

Here’s a look at the top five players on the Chiefs and Browns that Dorsey drafted:

Chiefs

  • Pat Mahomes
  • Tyreek Hill 
  • Travis Kelce
  • Eric Fisher
  • Chris Jones

Browns

  • Baker Mayfield
  • Nick Chubb 
  • Denzel Ward
  • Chad Thomas
  • Sheldrick Redwine

“I knew he would bring in some talented football players (in Cleveland), because that’s what he’s really good at,” Reid said. “I thought he could get that place turned around. He brought in a massive amount of talent. He’s done a nice job setting the foundation.”

There were seven GM openings in the NFL this offseason – Texans, Lions, Falcons, Panthers, Jaguars, Broncos and Washington. Four have been filled, and Dorsey has not been mentioned as a candidate for any of the other jobs.

So it doesn’t look like he’s going to get another GM job at this point.

Jeff Lurie was asked Monday about Dorsey and whether he might become a full-time member of the scouting staff here.

Instead of answering specifically about Dorsey, Lurie was vague and spoke of a number of people in the scouting staff, saying, “All the people we have … are very capable people.” 

But considering Dorsey’s track record and considering the Eagles’ recent track record, it seems like a no-brainer for the Eagles to keep Dorsey around.

All you have to do to understand why is watch the Chiefs-Browns game.

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