The San Francisco 49ers appear to have John Lynch’s primary deputy settled. A day after reports the team was going to interview Denver Broncos college scouting director Adam Peters, Matt Maiocco is reporting he has been hired. He will serve as Lynch’s VP of Player Personnel.
The formal structure of the 49ers football operations department is unknown to a certain extent. Tom Gamble is technically still the team’s assistant general manager. Maiocco reported on Monday that gamble would get an opportunity to prove himself between now and the 2017 NFL Draft. He was promoted to the assistant GM role last offseason, and was effectively Trent Baalke’s No. 2 guy. His role moving forward remains to be seen.
As VP of player personnel, Peters will oversee the day-to-day running of the team’s pro personnel and college scouting departments. John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan will create the philosophy for building the team, and to some extent, Peters will be responsible for much of the nitty gritty work that turns an idea into action. Lynch and Shanahan will be plenty involved in the process, particularly in dealing with other teams and agents, but Peters is likely the guy who will handle the proverbial “ground game.”
Peters’ experience has primarily been in college scouting. The 49ers current director of college scouting is Matt Malaspina, and their director of pro personnel is Mike Williams. They will all likely remain around for the next few months at least. Williams has been in his role for three years, after serving in a variety of primarily pro personnel roles for the 49ers and Rams dating back to 2000. He was the Rams VP of player personnel for three years. Peters seems to be well respected, but given his focus on college scouting, I would think Williams (and/or anybody else in pro personnel) will be relied upon fairly heavily in the early going.
Here is Peters’ resume.
Denver Broncos
2016: Director of College Scouting
2014-15: Assistant Director of College Scouting
2011-13: National Scout
2009-10: Western Regional Scout
2006-08: Area Scout
2005: Pro Scout
2003-04: Scouting Assistant