Jason Licht

Jason Licht (/ˈlaɪt/; born February 13, 1971) is an American football executive who is the general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL).^[1] Before joining the Bucs in 2014, Licht worked for the NFL's Miami Dolphins, Carolina Panthers, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

Early life

He played linebacker for the University of Nebraska football team as a freshman in 1989 and offensive guard in 1991 before transferring to Nebraska Wesleyan University, where he played defensive tackle from 1992 to 1993. An all-conference defensive tackle at Nebraska-Wesleyan, Licht earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology/Pre-Med.^[2]

Career

Front office assistant

In 1995, Licht was hired by then-Miami Dolphins scout Tom Heckert as a scouting assistant before serving as the Dolphins' offensive assistant/quality control coach in 1996. He then spent the 1997 season working for the college scouting agency National Football Scouting and the 1998 season in the Carolina Panthers' scouting department. From 1999 through 2000, Licht served as a college scout for the Patriots before being promoted to national scout for the 2001 season. He then was promoted to assistant director of player personnel in 2002, a position he held for one season before re-joining Heckert, then the Philadelphia Eagles' vice president of player personnel, in 2003 as the Eagles' assistant director of player personnel.^[3]

Upon Heckert's promotion to general manager in 2006, Licht was elevated to vice president of player personnel, but was fired by the team in May 2008.^[4] In June 2008, Licht was hired by the Arizona Cardinals as a personnel executive.^[5] He left the Cardinals and returned to the Patriots as their director of pro personnel in February 2009.

In 2012, Chicago Bears general manager Jerry Angelo was fired by the team. During the team's hunt, Licht was among the candidates for the general manager job, and he and Phil Emery were the two finalists.^[6][7][8] The Bears hired Emery, and Licht returned to Arizona as the Cardinals' director of player personnel beginning in 2012 and was promoted to vice president of player personnel in January 2013.

Licht has been on staff with 3 Super Bowl Champions (New England-2001, 2003 & 2004).

General Manager

On January 21, 2014, Licht was hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to fill its General Manager position. Previous candidates included Chris Ballard from the Kansas City Chiefs, Lionel Vital from the Atlanta Falcons and Marc Ross from The New York Giants.^{[9][10][11][12]} He signed a 4 year deal with a fifth year team option on his contract.^[13]

Licht was officially introduced at One Buc Place on January 23, 2014. In his first news conference, Licht talked about his philosophy: "Our philosophy is going to be to build through the draft. That's where we find our stars. That's where we find the next generation. But also in the short term and long term we're going to supplement our roster through free agency" "But we're going to look for value. We're going to spend wisely."^[14]

Personal life

He and his wife, Blair, have two sons, Charlie and Theo, and a daughter, Zoe.

References