Detroit Lions add 2 front office employees, including popular GM candidate

The Detroit Lions have added two “well-regarded” employees to their front office, including a popular GM candidate.

It’s common shortly after the NFL Draft for teams to shuffle up their front office and personnel departments. That appears to be the case again for the Detroit Lions, as according to Neil Stratton, the Lions have added two high-regarded people to their scouting department: Tom Roth and Dwayne Joseph. As of right now, their exact roles in Detroit are not clear.

Why are these guys highly-regarded? Let’s start with Joseph. For the past five years, he’s served as the Raiders’ director of pro scouting. Before that, he held the same job for the Philadelphia Eagles for five years (2015-19). During that time in Philly, he helped bring the first ever Super Bowl to the Eagles franchise. Here’s our friends at Bleeding Green Nation explaining how integral he was to the team during his time there.

One of the unsung heroes from the Philadelphia Eagles’ Wild Card win over the Chicago Bears was the guy who actually discovered the unsung heroes who made critical plays in that game. I’m talking about Eagles director of pro scouting Dwayne Joseph.

Joseph’s career spans back over a quarter of a decade, starting out in player development for the Chicago Bears before spending about a decade as a scout for the Dolphins (yes, his career overlapped with Dan Campbell in Miami from 2010-11) and back with the Bears.

In 2022, Joseph was interviewed for the Raiders’ general manager vacancy, and although he didn’t get the job, he did end up maintaining his director of pro scouting role despite the regime change. There is one report out there that Joseph has interviewed with multiple teams for their general manager role, including the Lions (not publicly confirmed by Detroit):

Joseph has also made several “GM candidates to watch” lists, including one from Jordan Schultz earlier this year, and one from The Athletic’s Mike Sando from 2022.

As for Roth, he has been a long-time scout for over two decades. He spent his first 14 years as a college scout for the Bills, and the last six years with the Tennessee Titans. His most recent title with the Titans—before being removed from the team website earlier this offseason—was also “college scout.”

Obviously, it’s good to see the Lions add well-regarded and experienced members to their front office. That’s particularly important considering over the past two years, Detroit has lost key members of their personnel department—with former director of college scouting Dave Sears getting hired as the Arizona Cardinals assistant general manager in 2023, and senior director of player personnel Lance Newmark taking the assistant GM role with the Washington Commanders earlier this year.