Mickey Loomis has been calling shots for the New Orleans Saints for a long time. There isn’t another general manager — or at least no one who share that title — who has held the job as long as he has in pro football. But how much more experience does he have than his peers?
Sure, there are de facto GM’s like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, but they ceded personal control to trusted assistants years ago. At the end of the day Loomis is involved with every decision the Saints make in free agency and on draft day, either okaying the suggestions of his staff or making the call himself. With contemporaries like Bill Belichick and Kevin Colbert leaving storied franchises the Saints try to emulate, Loomis is left alone.
And the gap between him and the next generation of GM’s around the league is staggering. Here’s how Loomis stacks up among the NFL’s 10 longest-tenured executives: