The Rams signed Billy Devaney as the Rams' executive vice president of player personnel.
Devaney comes to the Rams from Atlanta, where he has worked as the Falcons' assistant general manager in 2006 and '07. Previously, Devaney worked as an analyst for CBS Sports television's pre-game show from 2004-05.
He was pro personnel assistant in San Francisco from 2001-03, and was director of player personnel for the San Diego Chargers for 11 seasons from 1990-2000. Devaney's first full-time NFL job was as a scout for the Washington Redskins from 1983-90.
All told, he has been a part of three Super Bowl teams during his NFL front-office career, including two Super Bowl championship squads with the Redskins. Advertisement
"I really like the people he's worked for," Jay Zygmunt, the Rams' president of football operations-general manager, said Saturday. "He's been around a lot of winning programs. From a football operations standpoint, he's been in about every area. And he's very detail-oriented.
Devaney will be in charge of all aspects of the Rams' personnel department, including running the Rams' draft room. In fact, his job description sounds very much like the one given Tony Softli, when he was hired as vice president of player personnel two seasons ago.
For now, Softli will work under Devaney. But it remains to be seen if Softli will have a job after the draft in late April.
"This is an add-on, not a subtraction," Zygmunt said. "Tony's under contract. The idea here was to get better (in player personnel)."
The hiring of Devaney is part of an upper-management restructuring at Rams Park in which team President John Shaw may step back to more of a consultant's role. Zygmunt's status as the Rams' top executive in terms of dealing with the team on a daily basis would become even more solidified.
While dealing with the death of owner Georgia Frontiere and the reshaping of Scott Linehan's coaching staff, the Rams have been working on a new head of the personnel department for some time.
As recently as just a few days ago, team sources told the Post-Dispatch that they weren't close on the hiring of a new personnel head. But things accelerated with respect to Devaney later in the week to the point where the hiring became official Saturday.
With Devaney now in place, the assumption is that Linehan will have less say over personnel matters. But Zygmunt stopped short of saying that Saturday. Zygmunt indicated that personnel decisions will still be made by consensus, with Devaney working closely with Linehan and Softli this offseason.
It will take a while for Devaney to get up to speed on the draft. Zygmunt said Saturday that most of Devaney's recent work with Atlanta has been on the pro personnel side, which means Devaney will bring a lot to the table in terms of free agency evaluations this offseason.
The Rams also announced Saturday that Ron Milus has been promoted to secondary coach after being assistant secondary coach the past two seasons. Milus had worked under Willy Robinson, but Robinson was fired last month. The team is expected to name an assistant secondary coach to work with Milus, and had at least one candidate in last week for an interview.
The Rams also are still looking for an assistant strength and conditioning coach. They are hiring Terry Shea as quarterbacks coach, replacing Doug Nussmeier, but are still working through final details of that hiring.
Source: http://Stltoday.com