The Detroit Lions have found their front office replacement for Brandon Sosna.
According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Detroit Lions have hired Charlie Adkins to be their new senior director of football administration . He fills the hole left by the vacancy of Brandon Sosna, who was hired as the Washington Commanders senior vice president of football operations last month . Sosna was one of the lead points on contract negotiations in Detroit, and was undoubtedly paramount to the Lions’ extensions of Jared Goff, Penei Sewell, and Amon-Ra St. Brown this offseason.
Adkins comes to the Lions after spending the last seven years with the Arizona Cardinals . He was first hired as a football operations analysts, before jumping to the analytics and research department, where he has spent the last five years. His most recent title with the Cardinals was manager of football analytics and research.
While there is no public description of that job, Adkins has helped in several departments with the Cardinals. He was key in providing Kliff Kingsbury with analytical data when it comes to play calling . And he was a prominent figure in the Cardinals’ war room last year . You can see him in that linked video at the 4:27 mark actually helping the Cardinals with their trade up with the Lions.
“Some of the guys that I leaned on heavily, Dave Sears, Charlie Adkins and Rob Kissel did an unbelievable job of prepping us for the trade scenarios and even more so when it came time once we did the trade back,” Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort said in 2023 .
The Adkins hire is a fun little twist in the relationship between the Cardinals and Lions front offices. Arizona hired assistant general manager Dave Sears from the Lions last offseason, while Detroit hired director of health and performance Brett Fischer after a long tenure with the Cardinals.