Another NFL staffer is moving to the college GM level. After Ron Rivera, Andrew Luck and Michael Lombardi landed on this tier in the ever-changing college game, the Eagles will lose one of their execs to such a post.
Dave Caldwell is leaving Philadelphia for Florida, with ESPN.com’s Jeff Darlington reporting the former Jaguars GM will head back toward that region to become the Gators’ GM. Florida has since announced the hire.
Best known for his time in Jacksonville, Caldwell has been with the Eagles since 2021. Howie Roseman appointed his former GM peer as a senior personnel director. Roseman, who is a Florida alum, named him to that post in June 2022. The Eagles lost four staffers to NFL assistant GM jobs that offseason, and Caldwell helped fill the void. This earned him a Super Bowl ring.
The Jags fired Caldwell before the 2020 season ended, canning HC Doug Marrone soon after. While Jacksonville’s next move proved to be a misstep — the disastrous Urban Meyer hire — Caldwell’s operation had bottomed out by 2020, when the Jags went 1-15. Caldwell helped build the 2017 Jags roster — one that went 10-6 and nearly qualified for Super Bowl LII — but the team could not find steady success in his tenure.
Brought over from Atlanta in 2013, Caldwell hired Gus Bradley as HC and watched the Jags finish 15-49 in his first four GM seasons. The franchise’s 2014 Blake Bortles pick at No. 3 overall in 2014 came to define this period. Rather than can Caldwell, Shad Khan brought in Tom Coughlin to oversee him as executive VP. After a grievance-filled tenure, Coughlin was out by December 2019. Caldwell remained GM during the Coughlin tenure, but he reassumed his place atop the front office hierarchy in 2020.
The Gators finished 4-8 this season and have changed coaches. Linked to now-LSU leader Lane Kiffin, the SEC program hired Tulane’s Jon Sumrall as its new HC. Like Rivera (Cal), Luck (Stanford) and Lombardi (North Carolina), Caldwell will play a lead role in allocating money to players — as the Gators look to both retain talent and pay for replacements via traditional recruiting and through the transfer portal — in this complex era for the sport.