Power Players: Panthers EVP Brandt Tilis

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, This is Jordan Rod Reagan.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: I am so excited to share with you 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 people do football is the coolest and I know you think so too.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: So in these episodes of.

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Speaker 2: 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 bit further. We'll sprinkle these into your feed from time to time, a little extra treat for our loyal listeners. Today, I'm interviewing Brandt Tillis. He is the executive vice president of football Operations for the Carolina Panthers, and that means he's basically the central hub of a vast commands center. Brant directs everything from how the Panthers use their salary cap and handles contract negotiations. He runs their operations, including analytics, data, video, and related tools. He handles the CBA and other legal NFL rule book matters, and he works with GM Dan Morgan on scouting and talent identification in free agency and the draft. Brandt is a football lifer. He worked his way up through the league for years and spent the last decade and a half helping to shape what we now know as the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty. And yes, that means that he has three Super Bowl rings. He loves to build things, which is what Drew Panthers owner Dave Tepper and GM Dan Morgan to him back in twenty twenty four. And that's great news for us because we love to know how things are built.

00:01:49
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. Here's Brent Tillis. Brand Hi, thank you so much for joining.

00:01:55
Speaker 2: Me this week. Welcome to NFL Daily power Players. So now moving forward, I guess you can introduce yourself as Brandt Tillis power player. I know that really would be right up your alley about, you know, kind of fly in league circles.

00:02:08
Speaker 3: I would imagine, Oh, there's no doubt that people would never give me any kind of grief for calling myself a power player, especially my family.

00:02:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we're so happy to have you.

00:02:21
Speaker 2: We are so excited to talk to you today, and I really want to start with this because this is like you know when you ask people, are you a dog person or a cat person? Like this is the defining quality and question to discern someone's personality in my book, And that is why football?

00:02:36
Speaker 1: Why did football become your career? Why?

00:02:39
Speaker 3: Mainly luck? I was not an athlete growing up. I love sports, but was not a good athlete, and sports was my passion, watching sports, memorizing box scores, baseball cards, basketball cards, all of those things, and I just knew I wanted to find a way in I was I've always enjoyed working for a team, being part of a team, and competing, so just trying to find a way to contribute to sports. I've always been math based, so trying to just figure out, all right, how can I take the things I'm good at and apply them to things I'm passionate about? In football? Fit the mold I was. I was lucky enough to be connected with a mentor of mine named Mark Benain. Mark is now the president of the Oakland Athletics, but at the time he was with the Oakland Raiders And oh wait, no, they're not the Oakland athletics right there, and I think they're just called the athletics now. But anyways, Mark Mark was able to help me get an internship with the Raiders and from there just kind of went on my path. And yeah, I just I love competing, I love winning, and I love being part of something great.

00:04:03
Speaker 1: I think it's so cool that you.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: Being someone that, like you said, had a real acumen for math and sort of a math background, but you found a way into football where I think sometimes when we're kids, especially when we're growing up, we're going through the business, you almost wouldn't conflate the two, or you wouldn't put one and two together. But what sparked for you, what made you feel like that could be and data and building teams could be a part of no pun intended, kind of pun intended.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: Your overall equation boo. I know, I know, I know.

00:04:40
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of a good pun. They're probably been two things for me. One was playing Madden and fancy football, and just like understanding that math and especially when it comes to South Cap and analytics, like those things do apply to winning games. But I think the light really turned on for me and everything kind of clicked into place when I read Moneyball after my I want to say, my senior year in high school reading that book, and I just realizing that, oh wow, there is like there's an entire complex of analytics and numbers and stats and all of these things, and like people make good decisions based off these numbers, and people also can make bad decisions. And so just just learning that, like there's a there's a way for me to really contribute. And that was that was inspiring to me.

00:05:53
Speaker 2: I love I love that because you said something. I was listening and you know, doing my research on you, and and I was listening to a cast you did with with Field Yates, and you said something that I made sure to write down. When you were coming up in the ranks, and you you very much worked your way up, and one of the things you said was I just told myself to find a way to make myself useful. And it sounds so simple, but what did that What did that look like for you, especially knowing you had this passion and sort of like an uncharted territory at that.

00:06:25
Speaker 3: Time, making myself useful was not easy, but it was It was being very aware of what was happening, like all all around me. So when I was at the League office getting to know the people and the people and what like, Okay, this person's job is to do this, and this person's job is to do that, and you know, these are the things that we have to accomplish as as a unit, as a department, and you know, where are there inefficiencies here? And so like one of the kind of most let's just call it boring things for my department, League office to do with something called deferred compensation, which is which is a bad word to agents because it requires funding. I can get into all the all the all the details here, but essentially, teams have to show the money that they have guaranteed to players for the next year. They have to they have to put that into an ESCRO account. And for the longest time, trying to figure out how much money was would go into these ESCRO accounts was like one of the worst jobs in the department. And so it fell like onto me as the lowest person on the totem pole there and just showing like okay, like here's actually an easy way to do this, here's a different way to look at at how to track these things. And then it was kind of a light went on. I think for everyone, Oh, wow, like we can we can make this process better. Oh, and then we can use that what we learned from that process to make you know, tracking rookie contracts better, and we can track you know, all of the veteran contracts better. And so just being an outsider coming in and taking let's just call it an ignorant view of things, but it's blissful and making it work.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: I love that because, you know, when you when you leave the league office and then you go back to working for teams, so much of what you're also doing, as well as trying to you know, kind of maximize your lane and then also discover new lane scouting and talent identification and x's and o's, you know, beyond what you had already known, and all of those things, you're also trying to explain high concept things, especially quantitative and mathematical things to football people who respectfully don't all always want to hear those things or or want to even dip a toe in that water. How did you learn how to be a math to football, data to football you know, analytics to football translator and sort of build those bridges.

00:09:17
Speaker 3: I've always been able to connect with different kinds of people. So that's that's that's one way is making friends has always been fairly easy to me. So just talking to people, getting to know, getting to understand, all right, this is what this person's interested in, this is how to reach this person, this is how to connect with this person. I've always been able to kind of figure figure that out. Sometimes it might take me a minute, but I can. I can, I can figure that that beans out. But the other thing too is and you know this because you've been around teams like you've been embedded with teams football, people are much more curious then I think the public gives them credit for. So when I was in Kansas City to start out, and we had coming up with me like at the at the at the bottom of the of the organization, it was it was Ryan Poles, it was it was Field Yates, it was Mike Borganzi, Ryan Nutt, who's the one of the VPS of player Personnel Kansas City. They were all very curious people and they wanted to know as much as they could about the salary cap, about analytics, and I want to as much as I could about scouting, about how to how to build a team, how to how to look at players, how to deal with coaches, all those things. So we were able to kind of grow together. And then another person who I'm sure you're familiar with, who was really helpful there was Ray Farmer. Ray would always just push us and just sometimes even to like to the point of annoyance of he would play the devil's advocate, even when he didn't believe it. He would just say, Okay, well, defend that position. Okay, you want to trade a six round pick for this player, defend it. And he may he may agree with it, but he would force us to just to just dig a little deeper. And so I think just so building those relationships was really helpful to me, and and I think it served me well.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: There's such a communal I think process element to it, right, because if you walk across the office, it's the same conversations happening, the offensive coordinators trying to get their calls onto the play callers call sheet for that game, and arguing the why of things and trying to make convincing arguments, right, And I think so much about football is a functional argument. And I guess we would call it problem solving, but I guess that that takes a skill to argue, but I have not mastered it personally to argue, but to do so functionally.

00:12:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and that's that's the beauty of working for a team is everybody just we just want to win. So whatever gets us to winning is where we all want to be. And I think as long as there's respect to someone's viewpoint, and then at the end the decision is made and it's our decision, so long as we're there, everything else is just it's just a conversation. And you know, you never let it get personal, and it shouldn't. Then I don't. I don't think it ever has, at least in my experience. And it works.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: Love that and Brenton, you know, Carolina is building something. In my opinion, it teamed very near and dear to my own heart, is really building something solid. And to me, it's keeping an eye on some of the I guess more chaotic moments that have happened, the late game wins, late game losses, things that are can be so up and down through the course of the season. But it takes a collective talent and this collaboration that you and Dan Morgan have and then the people in the building to kind of ride those waves on the one hand, but keep an eye on the long term too. And I guess I wonder regardless of what happens over the course of a week by week result, like how do you pull data points from what could be valuable from those wins and losses without getting too caught up in the wins and losses? Like how do you take a long term look at what's happening to the team in the short term.

00:13:47
Speaker 3: It's hard, It's really hard, especially when we're in the building phase of our life cycle. So we want to keep on developing our players, developing our culture and building this thing so that it's sustainable moving forward. But at the same time, like right now we're seven and six, we're right in the middle of a playoff race, So so how do we how do we do both things at once? And what we look for is what is stable about us winning? And then what is let's call it fluky or lucky, And it could be it could be what's stable about us losing too, Like what is stable and what is fluky and what's lucky? And and how do we lean into the stability and make this the stable things better and minimize our reliance on on luck. And so after each game we just we just talk about, all right, here are the things that went that went well, here are the things that we could improve on, and and if those things that went well are are stable, then we feel pretty good about where we are. If we think they were lucky, okay, we have something to work on, like we we need to improve in these other areas or else our results are going to be luck reliant. And like an example that I have of this is and sorry, I have to go back. I have to go back a long ways because it's it's like the the core memory, if you will, of this is my first year in Kansas City. It was twenty ten. We played the Cardinals and we beat him. We've beat him pretty good. We beat him thirty one to thirteen. And there was a third down play. We were up seven three. There's a third down play Tim high Tower. Do you remember Tim high Tower? Yeah, so Tim Tim Tim high Tower, gets gets a swing pass, makes a guy miss and he's running for the first down. It was third and nine. He's running for the first down and Eric Barry came running downhill and knocked them out of bounds right right at the at the sticks, and so Arizona punted the ball back to us. We got a couple chunk plays, scored a touchdown, We're up fourteen to three, and then we were often running in the game. But if Eric doesn't make that play, what happens in that game? Like, that game could have been way different. So, yes, we won by eighteen, but had that play not happened something, the result could have been completely different. And so we looked for those moments here, like, what are those moments that the game could have flipped on us? It could have been a penalty call, it could have been look, it could have been a last second field goal by Ryan Fitzgerald. It could be a lot of different things. But finding out where are those plays and are those are those repeatable is really important to the process.

00:16:57
Speaker 2: I say this only slightly tongue in cheek, but it is rather amazing that you do have so many friends considering you have to be the guy that says, hey, that could have been lucky.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: Guys, let's not get.

00:17:05
Speaker 2: Too excited for this right after a win and all the all the emotions of the game flowing, But you you have to look at things squarely in the face. I mean, that's that's how good teams get good and stay good.

00:17:20
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, And it's a I mean it's a it's a core tenet of ours here is just being truth tellers to each other.

00:17:26
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but there's more. With Brent Tillis on the other side here on NFL Daily, we love to take analysis and turn it into a game. It is our way, and you seem to me like just the perfect person to kind of play this team building game with, especially because I do think you think about things in like you mentioned, and like we've talked about such a I would say microscopic and telescopic space at this at the same time. So, if you're building a team brand, you're starting from scratch. There's there's no groundwork in the organization. Let's say this hypothetical team on Mars, right that exists, and you're building from scratch, and you can only make three very important core decisions. We'll go one by one. What's the first decision that you make on Mars.

00:18:29
Speaker 1: Well, you know we.

00:18:30
Speaker 3: That's going to be oxygen.

00:18:32
Speaker 2: I'm just giving it environment and atmosphere, not burning up there's three.

00:18:39
Speaker 3: The first place that my head goes to with this is like, is vibes. What do we want the vibes of our organization to be? And I just think back to my the first time I got to meet with the Tappers in person, it was in their dining room at their home here in Charlotte, and and I walk into the house and Nicole greets me, and she's a phenomenal host and welcoming and gracious. And then I sit down at the dining room table, and then Dave walks in and he starts playfully ribbing me about my socks. I the only pair of blue socks I had had my kids faces on him, so I wore it. He's give me a hard time about the socks, and.

00:19:27
Speaker 1: Right, like, of course, that yeah, right.

00:19:30
Speaker 3: Right, And and Christy Coleman was there, our president, and a couple other members of the organization, and we it was a great conversation, and it was you're not You're not supposed to use the word comfortable in football, right, Nobody wants to be comfortable, But it was so I'll just say it was secure. It was I felt like I was sitting around my family's dining room table with my parents and sister and brother and aunts and uncles and cousins, and it was just it was banter. It was it was disagreements, it was agreements, It was playful, it was fun, it was curious. It was exactly like it was all of those things. And so I felt coming out of that conversation like, Okay, this is like, this is pretty interesting. If these are the people who own the team and they are this open and they are this enjoyable to talk to, I cannot imagine what the rest of the building is like. And sure enough I walked in the first day I was here, and it was it was that. And so that's not every building, right, Some buildings are going to be different. Some buildings are going to be are going to be like a little more corporate, right, and then like some more you know, some industries they want like a boiler room type atmosphere that's like go go, go go go, like that's and that's us at times, but not all the time. And and so then I just think about along with vibes, like all right, what are the words that we're using, how are we communicating with each other. One of the things that we're big on here is is trying to not use absolutes always never, definitely, no way and being just being more curious. And so so I think once you set your like the vibes as I just called it, I think you're in a good spot.

00:21:24
Speaker 2: I I love that you include language in that because I think that a failure to sustain a universal language, whether it's the language of your scouting department and or the language like you just said, how people speak to each other in the building. I actually my theory is that's the number one reason why teams fail. It's it's nobody understanding each other, right, and that's inclusive to the language of talent identification and everything. And you know, you say the word vibes, but it just it's so it's so layered, and I guess you know, for me thinking about that, and you have to be so anthropological when you go into a building like that. That's the biggest decision to that point you know that you're making. And so you know, I think when people look at your title and and your job and they see the numbers and everything, but you're scouting, this is anthropology, this is sociology. You're looking you're trying to feel things just as much as you are to understand them.

00:22:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt. And it's hard, but it's also fun and it's rewarding, and if you're doing it with great people like we've got here. We've got We've got coach Canals, we got Dan Morgan, We've got a whole staff of people who they are like minded in that we're just driven to win. We just want to win, and we just want to put a good product on the field and make our fans proud.

00:22:54
Speaker 2: Okay, what's your second major decision that you'd make besides oxygen?

00:23:00
Speaker 3: I thought the vibe. I thought the yeah oxygen, I thought the vibe. Answer was so good. You wouldn't make me do too many.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: Well, you know we're sticklers here, you know, So.

00:23:08
Speaker 3: After vibes, I would I would probably go to how do we want to lead? So? What does what does leadership look like in our organization? And I can't speak to everywhere else. I can only speak to my experience, and like, where are we going to find positive tension within our leadership? How we we have people that are on different they approach the problem with different timelines. Right, You've got to coach. Coaches are wired to win the next day, right, and then you've got a GM, and the GM's wired to win for the next one to three years. And then you've got you've got a president and and they're wired to operate or to want to win for the next ten to fifteen years. And everybody wants, you know, they want the longer timeline, but their focus is going to be on those on those timelines. And so how do you have the conversations of let's let's get to where we want to go and provide tension to each other. And that is am I making sense there?

00:24:18
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:24:18
Speaker 3: One.

00:24:19
Speaker 2: I love that because it goes back to what you were talking about, arguing functionally and challenging each other and pushing each other, but without the uh like egotistical parts of that seeping in or or being able to to look at difficult conversations very bluntly.

00:24:38
Speaker 1: And I think it's starting.

00:24:39
Speaker 2: I mean, and I love the process you're building these with because it does start with number one, the vibue. You have to make sure that the dynamic is correct and the languages is understood in the building before you can decide how much you can push people even when you understand their problem solving is all coming from a different angle.

00:24:57
Speaker 1: You're all trying to get to the same goal. So far, so far, I got to say.

00:25:02
Speaker 2: I'm pretty impressed because I think when you give someone three decisions, you know, to build an entire team with, they're.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: Like, well, uh, okay, uh quarterback.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: But even before that, you have to have these fundamental things in place before you can even think about roster decisions, before you can even think about you know, what the nuts and bolts of the actual team look like.

00:25:26
Speaker 3: Right, And and so for us here in Carolina, like we're we're building this. Yeah, I believe we're building it the right way. Time time will certainly tell, but we're I think we're on the right track here. And and the tension that we all provide to each other, and I'm very fortunate to be to be part of the tension that I can provide with with coach Canals and with Dan and the tension that's happening in those conversations is is what's helping to drive our building process. And then you know, you you combine that with with Coach Canals's positive energy and the fact our players are playing hard and the results are they're they're coming and some of them are there, and and I think the best Panthers football is ahead.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: Of us well as again near and dear to my heart, that makes me happy to hear. I've had so much fun watching you guys this year too. And a great answer to that question is not going to let you off the hook for your third major decision that that you're making here on Mars.

00:26:41
Speaker 3: You are you already answered it because once, I think, once you have those two things in place, once you've got your vibes, and once you know how you want to lead, you can then figure out, all right, who is going who fits these these parameters and who is going to lead us, who's going to be our head coach, who's going to be our GM, who's going to be our quarterback? Like those So while the fans are getting excited about who it's going to be, and they're you know, you're they're reading the lists of the candidates and who it could be, the hardest part about that process is looking within yourself. And that's the first two questions and now the rest of it, it just it just answers itself. And you know, I wasn't I wasn't lucky enough to be I wasn't able to be part of the interview process with with coach Canalis. But I mean, this is the same process that we used when we hired a lot of good people who who work here now who are helping us win, like Denny Callington, our head trainer and vice president of medicine, Josh Hanks, our director of performance, and Erki Or our vice president of analytics. This is the same process we did for that. It's at the end of the day, it's hr and it's really not that much different than scouting, right It's just like, Okay, these are the things we need, Let's find somebody who fits those things. Rather than being compelled by a great interview right like right now, I'm wearing a vest right now, like I look like I just gave a really good PowerPoint presentation. Don't be fooled by this. It's all about what you actually are.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: Oh man, I love that, And that speaks again to kind of your more anthropological.

00:28:30
Speaker 1: Nature and the curiosity.

00:28:32
Speaker 2: It's a breath of fresh air brand honestly, because you know, there is so much curiosity in that building and a thinking of you know, what's around the next corner, and how do we do it? Together and you feel it, and I've felt it for a couple of years there now, and it's exciting times.

00:28:48
Speaker 1: I'm very aware.

00:28:49
Speaker 2: We've taken up way too much of your time today, but I love I love talking to you about this.

00:28:55
Speaker 1: I love talking about how people.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: Build things, and I know you love to think about how to build things. And so we're real grateful to you for joining us on power Players. If you don't introduce yourself one time, at least as a as an NFL daily power Player over the course of like the Combine or something like that, you know I'll have an ear out for it.

00:29:16
Speaker 3: I think send a T shirt. Make get T shirts made it, send it.

00:29:20
Speaker 1: That will get you.

00:29:21
Speaker 2: Actually, we'll get you a vest you're wearing a ghast. We'll put it right next to the little Carolina Panthers head.

00:29:27
Speaker 1: There we go.

00:29:28
Speaker 3: Perfect or socks.

00:29:30
Speaker 1: I guess Dave Tepper would notice if you had it on.

00:29:33
Speaker 3: I definitely noticed the socks. May have a video from the draft room of him making fun of my socks too.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: That's incredible brand, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today.

00:29:45
Speaker 3: Thanks Jordan, it was great.

00:29:46
Speaker 2: That was Brent Tillis. We thank him for his time. I honestly I could have talked with him probably all day about how he thinks about team building. I especially loved how he has such a mathematical and analytical background, but he it truly is a translator and an anthropologist in that he takes this really human and culture based approach to team building and really resetting an organization in a very, very in depth and layered way, and getting the steps of the process right before thinking.

00:30:17
Speaker 1: So much about the results.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: I loved what he said about being really honest about what's lucky and what's actual process. I think that that's actually kind of a rare way to look at things across the league, especially we get so caught up in wins and losses. So thank you Brandt for your insight today, thank you for your time, Thank you to our listeners for helping to make this happen. We are going to be back with more episodes of NFL Dailies Power Players as a season and off season continue, and you can find those and every episode of NFL Daily wherever you get your podcasts.