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People and Pop Culture

Minding My Business With NFL Network Analyst, Former GM Charley Casserly

It is safe to say CHARLEY CASSERLY knows a thing or two about the NFL, having been a front office exec in the league for over two decades before tackling the TV world as an analyst with NFL Network. The former Redskins and Texans GM, who now doubles as a professor at George Mason Univ., spoke with THE DAILY about the heightened scrutiny on people in his former position, why it is so important to strive for versatility in one's career goals, and how he talks himself off the ledge when a certain baseball team has a rough outing.

Evolution of the GM office...

GMs are under more pressure and less patience is given to the position, and I think that’s all wrong. There are times when you’re going to go through tough periods, you’re going to go through rebuilding, and I think patience and understanding that not every decision is going to be perfect (is important). But the fact is, if you have a good plan and have good people, you’re going to succeed.

Technology's impact on the NFL...
I was on Competition Committee for a long time, and the thing we were concerned with was we wanted to limit what you could do during a game. Yes, you have all the technology available to you during the week, but it costs money. We didn't want to just open things up for that simple reason, it’s "STAR WARS," it’s an issue. To me, there was a financial end to that, and all of us felt the same, so that’s why we wanted to limit what technology could be used during the game.

It's a Hard Knock life...
I wouldn't be comfortable having them in a meeting when I’m talking about players and talking about personnel decisions or describing players. I think that’s something very private. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with them in a room when I’m releasing a player. There’s a certain dignity the player has, and I think you try to respect it and keep it in that situation. I do know this: when we were in Houston and we opened with Dallas in 2002, they had "HARD KNOCKS." There were two or three things they said in there that we found as motivating tools for our football team. All of us, when we heard, said, “Hold on, now this is something our players have got to hear.” Did that play into us upsetting them? I don’t know, but that was part of the motivational tool.

Most of my time at work is spent thinking about...
I spend a lot of time watching tapes. And when I’m doing that, I’m kind of brainstorming to evaluate players, evaluating the different schemes that are being run. That jumps me to ideas to whatever we might be talking about for the segments of the shows that I have. So that spurs a lot of the ideas.

Best advice I've ever received...
It’s when I was in college, and I was going to coaching clinics because I wanted to coach, I had a high school coach give me this advice. He said, “Be able to do more than one thing.” And right off the bat I think I followed that all my life. When I was a general manager, I had a weekly television show, so what I always wanted to do at the end of my career was television and teach at a university. As a general manager, every year I would have a period for self improvement, where I would read some books, make some phone calls, and then I kept a binder summarizing the books, so then when I looked at getting into teaching -- I had academic qualifications.

First media I consume each day...
Sport-Scan, it’s a religion in the NFL. I read it every day. What it is, is for every city, every football article in every newspaper that city had is published. It’s subscription-based, every team in the NFL did it, and so I read that every day. That starts me off and it gives me what’s happening in every city every day, and they've also put in some different dot com articles that covers Yahoo, NFL.com, ESPN.com, CBSSports.com.  

How I relax...
Go to the movies, love that, my wife and I. And going to (Nationals) baseball games. When they’re winning, it’s great. When they’re losing, I gotta say, "You know, I don’t work for the team, I have to take this differently." One of my hobbies is the baseball team here.

Beltway's best bites...
Clyde’s in Georgetown. Anybody you sit down with will find something they like. Also, McLean Family Restaurant in McLean, Virginia. It’s an old-fashion family diner, but there for a long time, great sandwiches, great breakfast. It’s an old kind of diner, everything imaginable is there. The food is good, the service is fast. 

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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