NFL Team Vice President of Football Operations Job Description

An NFL Team Vice President of Football Operations is the person responsible for running the football department as a business unit. Coaches decide who plays and general managers decide who is on the roster; the vice president of football operations makes sure those decisions can be executed: the cap room exists, the contract language holds up, the filing reaches the league office before the deadline, and the facility, travel and video staff are ready for the week.

The title covers different jobs at different clubs, so the club's own description matters more than the words on the business card. In Dallas, Todd Williams holds the title vice president of football operations/football administration. His club biography says he oversees the Cowboys' football operations, facilities, equipment, security and player development departments, monitors the salary cap, negotiates most rookie contracts, and is responsible for keeping the club in compliance with the NFL's Collective Bargaining Agreement. That is the contracts-and-compliance version of the job.

In Denver, Kelly Kleine Van Calligan holds the title vice president of football operations. Her biography describes her as the primary liaison for the Broncos' football operations, with significant pro and college scouting responsibilities, a role in draft and free agency preparation, and oversight of the video department. New England uses a third variant: John Streicher joined the Patriots in 2025 as vice president of football operations and strategy, arriving from a game management coordinator job with the Rams.

The cap and contract desk

Where the role carries cap responsibility, the work is a running model of the payroll. Every extension, release and restructure moves the club's cap room for this season and for later ones, and the vice president has to explain those trade-offs to the general manager in plain terms before a deal is agreed. Rookie contracts, renegotiations and veteran releases all pass through the same desk, along with the contract language that has to satisfy league rules.

The calendar

The NFL year is a sequence of hard deadlines. The 2026-27 league calendar required clubs to reduce rosters to a maximum of 53 players before 6:00 p.m. New York time on Aug. 30. It set 4:00 p.m. New York time on Nov. 9 as the cutoff after which any increase in a player's 2026 salary from a renegotiation or extension received by the league's Management Council is treated as signing bonus and prorated over the entire term of the contract, including 2026, and it ended all trading for 2026 at 4:00 p.m. New York time on Nov. 10.

The department

Beyond the cap, the vice president manages people: operations coordinators, equipment and video staff, security, and the facility crew. The work also means guarding confidential information on contracts, injuries and personnel, and being the person the league office calls when a transaction or rule question needs an answer.

There is no license or league certification for this job. Clubs hire on a record of handling contracts, the cap, roster rules and staff, and the routes into the chair vary with the version of the job a club is filling.

Education. As a rough guide, a bachelor's degree is the baseline, and a law degree or a master's in sports management or business is useful preparation for the contract-facing version of the role. Jeff Scott, the Eagles' vice president of football operations, earned a master's degree in sports management from Georgetown University in 2012. John Streicher of the Patriots holds a master's degree in organizational leadership from Ohio State. Neither degree is a requirement; they show the kinds of study that sit behind the title.

Experience. The club biographies show three starting points:

• Cap and contracts. Scott entered the NFL with Washington in January 2012 as a salary cap intern, assisting with cap analysis and contracts. He later worked as a scout, then as Washington's director of football strategy/scout, where he assisted the senior vice president of football operations with contract negotiations, strategic planning, management council compliance and salary cap management.
• Scouting and personnel. Kelly Kleine Van Calligan spent nine years with the Vikings, rising from public relations intern through scouting roles to manager of player personnel/college scout, before moving to Denver.
• Coaching staff and administration. Streicher worked as director of football operations at Texas State and James Madison, then as the Titans' director of football administration, before the Rams and the Patriots.

As a rough guide, candidates reach vice president after 10 or more years inside football departments, with several of those as a director.

Skills that matter.

• Command of the collective bargaining agreement: contract terms, signing bonus proration, tenders, waivers and grievance procedures
• Cap modeling across several seasons, including dead money from releases and the effect of restructures
• Negotiating with agents on rookie and veteran contracts
• Running a calendar of league deadlines without misses
• Managing equipment, video, security and facility staff and budgets
• Clear written briefings for a general manager or owner who needs the decision, not the spreadsheet
• Discretion with medical, contract and disciplinary information

Useful preparation. Internships inside a club's football operations, scouting or cap office are the entry points shown in these biographies. Work in a sports law practice or an agency that represents players is another way to learn contract mechanics. Comfort with spreadsheets, database tools and cap software helps from the first internship onward.

The market for this job is small and fixed. The NFL has 32 clubs, and each decides for itself whether it has a vice president of football operations, what the title includes, and whom the person reports to. Openings come when an executive leaves, retires or is promoted, or when a new general manager or head coach reorganizes the football department. The biographies cited on this page include both promotions from inside a club and hires from other clubs.

Pay context

Clubs do not disclose what they pay football executives, and BLS does not report NFL front offices separately. The nearest federal data is the Chief Executives occupation, which O*NET lists with the alternate title Operations Vice President. The spectator sports figures for that occupation appear in the salary notes on this page. Across all industries, the occupation's May 2025 median was $213,990, and BLS counted 204,350 chief executives in its national estimate. Those numbers describe executives in every kind of business and are a reference point, not a quote for any NFL job.

For the occupation as a whole, O*NET projects average growth (3% to 4%) from 2025 to 2035. That projection covers chief executives in every industry and says nothing specific about NFL clubs.

What is changing in the work

AI tools in the building. In the expanded NFL-Microsoft partnership announced Aug. 20, 2025, the league said staff working across the 32 clubs would be able to use AI agents to support workstreams including player scouting and salary cap management. For a vice president of football operations, that can mean quicker scenario modeling and research. It also raises practical questions the department has to answer for itself: how staff check a model's output before it reaches the general manager, and who can see confidential contract and medical information inside those tools. The judgment on a contract, and the signature on a compliance filing, stay with people.

The labor calendar. The current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2030 season. A successor agreement could change the rules the vice president applies every day, from roster limits and practice rules to contract terms and the cap system itself, so following the bargaining closely is part of the job well before that date.

A department with wide reach. The Cowboys' version of the job already spans football operations, facilities, equipment, security and player development, and the Broncos' version includes scouting and the video department. Running those versions of the title means managing people and budgets across several groups while keeping the cap and contract work accurate.

Where the job leads

Next steps can include a broader title inside football, such as senior or executive vice president of football operations, assistant general manager or general manager, or a move to the NFL league office. The job also puts the vice president in daily contact with agents, the league office and ownership.

Dear [Hiring Manager],

Please consider me for your opening as Vice President of Football Operations at [Club]. For the past five years I have been Director of Football Administration at [Current Club], where I run our cap model, draft rookie contract language, manage the league filing calendar and supervise our equipment, video and travel staff.

The part of the job I am proudest of is the part nobody notices. In my time running the transaction desk we have not missed a league deadline, and I built a weekly cap briefing for our general manager that fits on one page: current room, next season's commitments, and what each pending decision would cost. When we weighed an extension for our starting left tackle last spring, that briefing let ownership see the effect on our cap for the next three seasons before the meeting started.

I also negotiate directly with agents on rookie deals. I prepare by knowing the slot, the agent's recent deals and our own priorities, and I keep those conversations professional because the same agents will be across the table again next year.

On the operations side, I spent two seasons rebuilding our travel and training camp planning with the business staff. Coaches now get their week-of-game schedule earlier, and our equipment and video teams work from the same plan. I also hired and trained two operations coordinators who now run our training camp housing and practice-field scheduling on their own.

I want to bring that combination of cap discipline and department management to [Club]. I would welcome the chance to talk about how your football operations group is organized and where you want it to go.

Sincerely, [Your Name]