Power Players: Chargers Assistant GM Chad Alexander

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2:39Hi everybody.

2:40Jourdan Rodrigue:This is Jordan Rodriguez. I am so excited to share that we are trying out a new capsule series for NFL Daily called NFL Daily Power Players. As many of you know, I love football. One of my favorite things about the NFL is learning about how teams are built, how decision makers from coaches to executives to scouts to players think and the process itself of the sport. How football people do football is the coolest thing ever. So in these episodes of NFL Daily Power Players, we're going to talk to football people and learn from them and pull back the curtain of the sport for you just a little further.

3:16Jourdan Rodrigue:We'll sprinkle these into your feed from time to time. A little surprise extra treat for our listeners. Be sure to check out a fantastic first episode with Carolina Panthers Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Brant Tillis. And today, I am so thrilled to be speaking with Los Angeles Chargers Assistant GM, Chad Alexander. Chad has helped build NFL teams for 27 years, with two decades in Baltimore in various roles in that storied front office and five years with the New York Jets. Now, Chad is GM Joe Hortiz's right-hand man as the Chargers establish themselves as one of the best teams in the AFC.

3:58Jourdan Rodrigue:The playoff hunting Chargers have obviously had more than their fair share of injuries all season. But as Chad likes to say, there are no style points in this league and especially the way that these Chargers are built and they keep finding ways to win games, even unconventionally. And even before the injuries started rocking their offensive line, especially, you could see the clear vision to be bigger, more physical, tougher than their opponents. I refer to them often as a modern throwback because they blend progressive ideas with vintage football qualities. We're going to talk to Chad today about helping to build that ethos within the team, which of course starts with the players, but is also an important responsibility for the front office and coaching staff too.

4:40Jourdan Rodrigue:I think you guys are going to love this. Let's get right into it. Hi, Chad. Thrilled to have you here today on NFL Daily's Power Players. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Jordan. It's great to see you. I feel like we should have just had you come right up the street from El Segundo and come into the studio here. I'm staring right across the street at your home stadium. I know. I know. That's crazy. I love L.A. It's been cool since being here for a couple of years. I never lived here before, but obviously visited it quite a few times. This is just a great area. It's a lot of fun.

5:12Jourdan Rodrigue:I know. Warm winters, man. You can never go back. You can never go back. You can never go back. I mean, I'm not used to this for sure. You know, I want to get right into this idea. It's so fun watching what you guys have built with the Chargers over the last couple of seasons, because when you talk about team identity, sometimes it's hard to describe. You know it when you see it and you know it when you feel it. And I would say that what you guys have built over there has been the epitome of establishing a tone, establishing a culture. And I sort of describe your team, and we've talked about this, as a little bit of like a modern throwback, right?

5:49Jourdan Rodrigue:Like you sort of pivoted a little bit when the rest of NFL's defenses got a little bit smaller. You guys decided to load up and be bigger, stronger, tougher than everybody, and to be really multiple schematically in the ways that you also did that. So take me back to the installation of this process, what you wanted your identity to be and what you started doing, the little pieces you had to put in place to start trying to figure out how to get the guys in the building that would epitomize that. I think we always knew that we wanted our identity to be a team that was extremely tough, extremely physical.

6:27And we wanted our identity to really kind of emulate the identity of our head coach. You know, Jim is every every program he's been associated with has been one that has been recognized as being extremely tough, violent players that are, you know, gritty players that are versatile, like you talked about. and guys that just, you know, have this unselfishness about them. And it's really a next man up mentality. And, you know, we wanted to enforce our will on opponents. And I think you kind of see that, you know, the last couple of weeks have been really inspiring for everybody in the organization.

7:06You know, I mean, we've won six of our last seven, but the last two games have really been kind of fistfights with the two Super Bowl teams from a year ago. And I feel like we, you know, we try to enforce our identity. We try to kind of make teams play our style of football. And it's not necessarily conventional in today's football. But at the same time, we're not really interested in style points. And we're just really trying to build a bully. And I feel like we're trying to establish that.

7:36Jourdan Rodrigue:Well, you see it because even with, you know, injuries happening and there's this sort of resilience, I think, that comes through and certainly has this season, including from the quarterback, who I think when Justin Herbert, and especially kind of being in LA and the last, you know, before Jim came in and before you guys installed your staff and the rest of this roster, some of the reputation, you know, of being a finesse thrower, right? But you're seeing him put his foot in the ground. You're seeing him lower his shoulder. What we talked about a lot on this show was we're like Justin Herbert's out of the house, right?

8:09Jourdan Rodrigue:Because he's pointing the first down marker and he's letting some of that personality show. So with him, how have you seen him grow and start to really be the face of this, like this more physical brand of football that you guys are playing? Yeah. And we never, when we got here, we never associated him really with anything that's based on being finesse. You know, first of all, the guy's a specimen. I mean, and he's huge physically and, you know, really tough mentally, really tough physically as he displayed by playing through, you know, several injuries and most recently the non-throwing hand.

8:46But Justin is extremely rugged, you know, as a player. And, yeah, he's a quarterback that has all the attributes. He's got the big arm and he's a really athletic player and a good athlete and guy that can run. But at the same time, he's extremely tough. And, you know, it's inspirational to his teammates, you know, for them to see a guy like that play through injuries, for them to see a guy like that who's really tough minded and just has a no nonsense approach to pretty much everything. I think it's it's it's really it's empowering for the rest of the team. And it's someone who people can look to and draw inspiration from.

9:23So, I mean, he's an outstanding leader and he really kind of embodies everything that we're trying to accomplish here.

9:29Jourdan Rodrigue:I love that response because you're also describing traits, right, that you really very much needed to go and scout to bring more players into the building as you guys were establishing what you wanted this roster to be, whether it was veteran players in free agency or retaining some of the veteran players who are already on the roster or drafting guys who who have these traits. you have worked for 25 years in the league at the highest levels of scouting and pro personnel. And I always find that scouts are scouts for life, right? Like you are always looking and assessing like how a part can fit to a whole, right?

10:07Jourdan Rodrigue:So when you're looking for traits, what is the process? Like, how do you prove beyond interviews and tape? How do you prove that a guy has these types of qualities that can sometimes be considered intangible? You know, we do a lot of background, a lot of research on every player that we discuss in terms of the draft specifically. We spend as much time on the player that's at the top of our draft board as we do a player that's, you know, really the last player on our list. And it's really all about sequencing guys and putting guys in an order. But we do. We look for those core principles. We look for toughness.

10:44We look for resiliency. We look for grit. We look for guys who have overcome some sort of adversity. you know anything like that you know just just key tells it that can let us know hey this is the type of player that we want to bring into this program because it's really not for everybody you know it's it's it's for those you know the rare players that are that are the toughest of the tough the guys that are uh extremely uh you know durable guys that are extremely uh tough minded and you know those are the type of uh individuals that we look for we uh we talk to you know, several different people when we go into these schools and we like to, you know, compare notes and bring everybody into the discussion.

11:23And it's all about, you know, really open and honest communication amongst the coaches, amongst the scouts. And, you know, we do, you know, draw on our experiences. So myself being in the league for as many years as I've been in it, you know, there's not very many things that I haven't seen. So, you know, we kind of look at that and think about, you know, how's this guy going to project in our program, you know, and also what's our development plan that we have for them. And so all of that stuff is taken into consideration, you know, obviously we consider analytics and, you know, the player development part of it.

11:57But I think that, you know, for us, we, the best part about Jim and about Joe Ortiz, our general manager, is that, you know, they have a clear identity and a clear, you know, set of standards that they have for each player that comes into the building. And so we know, based on the comments from the school, based on the comments from their coaches, if they transferred comments from the last school, we know which type of players are going to survive and thrive in this building. And those are definitely the types of players that we try to draft, the types of players that we try to bring in through free agency, on the practice squad, on any avenue in terms of building the roster.

12:38Jourdan Rodrigue:I like what you said about getting, you have such clarity from Joe and Jim, right? Can you speak more about the importance of that type of clarity in communicating what an identity is for a team so that the entire building has no question, the scouts who are all over the country, the people who are drawing up the contracts, the players themselves, what is the importance of knowing what you're about and being able to communicate it? I think it's vitally important. You know, it's extremely critical that there's a lot of open and honest communication, particularly between the scouts and the coaches, right, between the coaching staff and the personnel staff.

13:18And, you know, Joe and Jim have done a great job of connecting those dots and, you know, explaining to everybody, hey, this is our vision. This is our identity. These are the types of players we want and we need. And so when we come into the draft room and we discuss these players, there's open and honest communication. There's there's a lot of people that are giving their opinions and you're encouraged to give your opinion and not encouraged to, you know, your group think is not opinion is not encouraged. You know, discussing things in silos is not encouraged. You're encouraged to just throw it out on the table.

13:51And from there, we just kind of come up with a list and an order of how we like, you know, these guys. And so, you know, there's a lot of detail that goes into every discussion and every player that we pick. So, yeah, it's great to be a part of an organization where we have a clear-cut identity. We know what types of players we want to bring in. And we know what types of players that may, you know, they may fit elsewhere. But, you know, it probably wouldn't be a fit here. So I think that's important.

14:20Jourdan Rodrigue:Yeah, so much of team building. One of the pieces of it that I think is so underrated is knowing what you also don't want, right? And that's a life lesson too as you grow up. And so I'm curious, you know, on NFL Daily, I warned you about this, Chad. On NFL Daily, we like to play, we like to gamify things. We love game theory. We love testing out ideas and debating ideas with analysis behind them. Of course, we don't shout here. When you think about like what you've been a part of and your life and your journey in coaching, I guess I would ask like, if you were gonna build a franchise from scratch, let's say it's on Mars, you have a climate control, oxygenated environment, right?

14:58Jourdan Rodrigue:It's you're starting totally from scratch. I want to know what the top three or the first three decisions you would make starting with the very first one, the most important decision you think somebody building a franchise from scratch needs to make when they come into an organization. Wow, that's a good question. I think when you're talking about building a franchise from scratch, I think you're not necessarily concerned about individual players, but you're really concerned about the culture. You know, culture certainly matters most. The quality of the people in the organization is always going to determine the success of the organization.

15:40And I think you want to start with alignment. You know, you want to start with alignment with ownership. and you know everybody wants to win but and everybody wants to do well and everyone wants to compete for championships but how do you want to win you know what do you want your team to look like what are your sacred yeses and nos you know what do you what are your non-negotiables uh how are you going to build a an environment to where people are comfortable having uncomfortable conversations and talking about every department and throughout football ops and you know the analytics, the coaching, the player development, scouting, everybody.

16:19How are we all going to communicate? And, you know, how are we going to have these discussions? You know, the best decisions really do come from discussion. And I think that's, you know, vitally important. I also think that from there, you really want to talk about the leadership structure, you know, you want to decide who's going to come in and be the head coach, you know, who's going to be the leader of men, who's going to come in and preach his philosophy and who's going to be aligned with our vision. I think that's extremely important. And it's also important to have someone who's a great communicator, who is a great leader, who's a great teacher, who's a great motivator, and someone who is extremely authentic.

17:00And I think we're very fortunate to have Jim here. He's extremely authentic.

17:07Jourdan Rodrigue:We've seen the clips. Right. And that's who he is. That's exactly who he is. you know people ask me all the time you know what's he like and I'm like all you got to do is watch one of his press conferences that's who he is you know he's all ball all the time and uh he's extremely authentic and that resonates in the locker room and I truly do believe that you know the locker room is the most important room in the building but I also believe that the locker room is the smartest room in the building and they didn't get to where they are just by you just on athletic ability and football ability alone they also got to where they are by being able to read people and being able to read the room and being able to adapt in certain situations.

17:45So you have to be extremely authentic and your message has to resonate with the locker room. And, you know, it's, I think, I think, I think that's really important. And, you know, it's also, it's not just the head coaches bringing in coaches who are able to develop talent. And I think we've done a great job with that here too. Our coaches have done an outstanding job of developing talent and getting the best results out of players that they can. And I think you see that the results are easy to see. I think the third thing is you want to talk about what type of players that you're going to bring in.

18:20You know, how are you going to build the roster and how are you going to build a developmental blueprint for the roster? You know, everyone has to be involved in these discussions. And, you know, it has to be, you know, it doesn't matter who gets it right as long as you go into a room and you decide what's the best decision for the organization. And each player has to have their own individual developmental plan, whether it be through the analytics, through player development, the strength and conditioning, the medical plan. Each player has to have their own plan. So I think that's really important.

18:55And we have to decide where are you going to spend the resources, where are the resources going to be allocated. it. You definitely want to have a draft centric approach. You want to build to the draft. The draft has to be the bloodline of your organization. And, you know, but you're always trying to upgrade the roster, always trying to churn the bottom of the roster, always trying to, you know, upgrade the practice squad and, you know, just trying to create an environment where, you know, competition is paramount. So I think I think those are probably the three things that you want to establish when coming in.

19:29Jourdan Rodrigue:Well, sign me up. First of all, I'm a fan of this team already. And second of all, the things that you mentioned, culture, leadership structure, starting with the head coach down to the assistants and the type of players that you're scouting and that you're bringing in. I appreciate the way that you've presented it, because if you think about it, all of those things have to be so connected to each other. You mentioned earlier in our conversation, no silos, right? And when you're building in this way where you're creating like an environment, less so different departments. How do you, in your role, because one of your main roles is to build bridges between all of these places, to know everything that's going on, to be able to make clear decisions or assist in making clear decisions, to understand the people of the building as much as you're understanding the process of the building, right?

20:19Jourdan Rodrigue:So how do you, in your personal journey, like how do you go about connecting or reaching into other parts of the building in order to create that environment that you're talking about? Yeah, I think you have to try to just force collaboration, force communication on every level. And like I said, in particular, between, you know, coaching and personnel, you know, we're not going to be in all the meetings with the coaches, but I'd like to, you know, talk to the coaches and talk about how the players are performing in those meetings. You know, how, how is this guy taking notes? You know, how's he watching film?

20:52Is he, you know, does he communicate well does he learn well like what what are the things that he needs to work on what's his attitude like all those things i mean you have to you know you have to try to bridge the gap and you have to try to connect those dots and you know likewise with with coaching you know when we get into those draft meetings they're asking a lot of questions as well you know they're asking the scouts you know what's this kid's background what makes him tick you know how how is he motivated how does he learn and i think those types of questions constantly have to be asked in order to come up with a great developmental plan for each player that's on our roster.

21:28So I think that's, you know, it's really important. I think, you know, there's no quick fix to any of it, but it all comes to, you know, just constant communication about, you know, everything and everyone in the building and trying to develop, you know, the players, but also trying to develop us as people that work in football ops, trying to develop coaches, you're trying to develop scouts and, you know, come up with the best plan for everyone to improve and ultimately just to improve the team as a whole.

21:56Jourdan Rodrigue:I like that you included the scouts in development, too. I think when people think of scouts, they think of like the grizzled guy living out of his car somewhere in Alabama, right? Scouting between Auburn and Alabama on that long highway, right? Probably flew into Atlanta in the process, right? That's true, too. Yes. Yeah, that's true, too. But still, I think that I like what you said about, because they're in little satellite worlds all around, all around the country. And part of managing the talent identification process is communicating, despite the fact that their job is very much remote for a lot of the year.

22:32Jourdan Rodrigue:And they are finger on the pulse of these buildings. And I know from your own experience and then also what you're doing now in managing a lot of these people, what was the biggest, most important thing in terms of your development of like, I'm learning how to identify talent to I identify talent. And then how do you sort of apply that now to bringing together a collective of people that are all in different places at once? That's a good question. I think, you know, and, you know, obviously in starting out, you know, 27 years ago, yeah, you're learning how to identify talent. You know, you're looking for what traits each coach specifically wants for their position.