The Kansas City Chiefs will have a major change in the front office for the coming season. The team’s former assistant general manager, Mike Borgonzi, left the team after 16 seasons in various roles to become the general manager of the Tennessee Titans.
Borgonzi — who originally came to the Chiefs in 2009 on Scott Pioli’s staff — spoke with host Kay Adams on Monday’s episode of “The Up and Adams Show” on FanDuel Sports Network. While he confirmed passing on other opportunities in previous seasons, Borgonzi stated that he liked Tennessee as a destination to move his family, and the team holding the No. 1 overall selection in next month’s draft played a role in the decision.
“It felt like it was the right time for me, personally,” he stated. “Just in my career, I thought it was the right time. I had a lot of great experiences in Kansas City. I got to win three Super Bowls. It was a great time. Tennessee was appealing to me too. They have the number one pick. It’s a great place to live. That’s important to me. If I’m going to pick my family up and move some place — and we loved Kansas City — that had to be a big part of it too.”
He also remembered a time the Chiefs had the draft’s top selection in 2013, the year head coach Andy Reid came to town.
“I had it before at one point in Kansas City,” Borgonzi recalled. “I was there for a long time. We actually had it. It was Andy’s first year when he took over in 2013. I’ve been there before — don’t always want to be there again. But I have some familiarity with it.”
At the owners’ meetings, Borgonzi now takes his place among some familiar faces in the league’s general managers. Besides Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, he worked with Chris Ballard of the Indianapolis Colts and Ryan Poles of the Chicago Bears during his tenure in Kansas City’s front office.
“There’s so many people when you’ve been in the league for 16 years,” he observed. “I look around now, it’s guys like Chris Ballard that I worked with. It’s Poles. It’s Veach. We’re all GM’s now. So, I guess it’s like we’ve all grown up.”
Of course, now Borgonzi has left the league’s most successful franchise of the last decade for a Tennessee squad coming off a brutal 3-14 campaign. He shared the most important lesson he plans to bring from Kansas City in hopes of turning the Titans around.
His thoughts echo true with much of what Chiefs fans have seen of their favorite players off the field.
“You want guys that love football and love the process,” Borgonzi explained. “That’s the big thing. We can go through this whole thing with talent, but are guys good teammates, and do they love football? It sounds simple, but it’s really important to build a culture in the locker room the way you want it. Do guys love football? Do they love meeting? Do they love working out and going through the process? Do they love hanging out with their teammates? That’s important.”
