Detroit Lions lose another front office member to the Washington Commanders

The Detroit Lions lost one member of their front office this offseason, when Lance Newmark left after 26 years to become the Washington Commanders' assistant general manager. On Sunday, Mike Garafolo of NFL Network reported the Commanders were "working to hire" Lions senior director of football administration Brandon Sosna to an undisclosed "high-ranking" role in their front office.

Monday morning, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported it's a done deal with Sosna and the Commanders. He will be Washington's new senior vice president of football operations.

The Commanders have confirmed the hiring of Sosna.

The Lions hired the 31-year old Sosna in 2022. He spent three years at USC prior to coming to Detroit, and before that he had spent time in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns. He was certainly key to the Lions' offseason this year as the lead contract negotiator, with the three big contract extensions that got done in recent weeks.

According to Schefter, Sosna will be the Commanders' lead contract negotiator amid a wide swath of duties that will come with his promotion.

"Reporting to GM Adam Peters, Brandon Sosna will be the club’s lead contract negotiator. He will oversee a number of football operations departments, including analytics, health and performance and football administration. He will also play a major role in strategy around roster construction, the salary cap and the CBA."

Lions are seeing the other side of success

When a team has success, other teams want to replicate by hiring their people away. The Lions are experiencing that, as Sosna becomes the third front office member they've lost in the past year or so. Newmark went to Washington, and the Arizona Cardinals hired scouting director Dave Sears as their assistant general manager in January of 2023.

And despite their blatant attempt to slander him after he pulled himself out of consideration, the Commanders would have hired Lions' offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their head coach over Dan Quinn in a heartbeat. So the Lions could have easily lost three key people to Washington in recent months.

The Lions have replenished their front office, hiring Dwayne Joseph and Tom Roth to yet-undisclosed and yet-to-be-announced roles. Sosna is a pretty big loss, but the Lions now have a front office pipeline other teams are noticing in line with the success they've had on the field.