Detroit Lions promote Mike Disner, hire Brandon Sosna among 8 front office changes

On Friday morning, the Detroit Lions announced that they have made several changes to their front office structure. The changes are mostly shuffling amongst existing staff, giving either promotions or shifting duties to people already within the organization.

However, amongst the moves includes the official hiring of Brandon Sosna as the team’s senior director of football administration, as previously reported here. The details of that job remain unclear, but it’s worth noting his job is considered to be on the “football operations” side of the business rather than the “player personnel” side.

The most significant move amongst the eight changes is Mike Disner being now named the chief operating officer. Previously, Disner served as the team’s senior vice president of football and business administration. Disner has been with the Lions since 2019 and was listed in The Athletic’s NFL 40 Under 40 list for both 2020 and 2021. General manager Brad Holmes recently credited Disner for his work with the salary cap.

“From a free-agency standpoint, Mike Disner does not get recognized as much as he should,” Holmes said. “All the work he does making sure that our salary cap and our cash spending is intact, it puts us at a very advantageous point, in terms of a free-agency standpoint.”

Here’s a look at the other changes throughout the front office:

• Lance Newmark has gone from director of player personnel to senior director of player personnel.
• Brian Hudspeth has gone from national scout to assistant director of college scouting
• Joe Kelleher has gone from pro scout to assistant director of pro scouting
• Ademi Smith has gone from personnel assistant to scout
• Gina Newell has gone from director of team operations to senior director of football operations
• Jesse Giambra has gone from coordinator of team operations to manager of team operations/head coach administration