The Las Vegas Raiders got a much needed revamp this offseason adding a new general manager and head coach in the months since the season ended. The new GM John Spytek came by way of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and will rejoin his former quarterback, and recent addition to the Raiders’ ownership, Tom Brady.
Spytek, 44, has been around the NFL since 2004 when he served as an intern for the Detroit Lions. Since then, he has worked in the scouting departments for the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns, and the Denver Broncos where he worked under then general manager John Elway.
“You knew he was going to get an opportunity to be a GM,” said Elway as reported by Ryan McFadden of ESPN. “I think [the Raiders] are in good hands.”
High praise coming from the man who spent his entire 16 year career quarterbacking the Broncos’ before serving in the teams front office for more than a decade. Elway was so fond of Spytek that he elevated the then young scout from a regional scouting position to a national scouting role after just one season in Denver.
“Usually, it’s a three- to six-year build for these guys that work in these systems, but for a guy to make the jump like he made with us, I thought, was unusual,” Elway told ESPN.
Spytek ‘Eat Sleeps Drinks’ Football
As an intern in his early 20’s, Spytek was bartending on nights and sleeping in the Lion’s team facility to make his career aspirations a reality.
“He would eat, sleep and drink football, man,” then Lions’ director of football operations Craig Vandermause said. “He was crazy.”
His work ethic and film study eventually landed him in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ front office where he served as assistant general manager.
“Part of Spytek’s rise came from helping teams build strong draft classes,” wrote McFadden. “In 2024, he helped Tampa Bay draft wide receiver Jalen McMillan in the third round and running back Bucky Irving in the fourth.”
He gave McFadden an insight into the traits he looked at for in prospects in Tampa Bay and undoubtedly the traits he will be assessing as the head of the Raiders’ draft team.
“In Tampa, where I felt like we got really good, we matched the quality tape up with the quality person,” Spytek told ESPN. “And whether or not other people think that we drafted guys a little bit too high, I think the proof was in the pudding that those were the guys that we built that program on.”
Spytek Latest Entrance Into Young GM Trend
At the age of 44, Spytek would have been considered a spring chicken in front offices around the league. That is before the Browns’ and Jaguars’ rewrote the unwritten rulebook when the team’s hired general managers aged 32 and 34 respectively.
Even then, Spytek assumed the role and completed the head coach interview process by hiring 73-year-old Pete Carroll to coach the ball club, a 29 year age difference.
“Knowing that the relationship between the head coach and general manager is the most significant and impacting relationship, John and I have started off with a dedication to really collaborate in every way that we can bring out the best in both of us,” head coach Pete Carroll said at the annual league meetings last month. “I can already see us hitting it.”
