Dave Ziegler “Fell in Love” with the Scouting World

Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler knew he wanted to stay in the football world after college. He did just that by learning how to scout and falling in love with it.

Like many who take the coaching or scouting route, Las Vegas Raiders General Manager Dave Ziegler loved football.

Ziegler played at John Carroll University with Raiders Coach Josh McDaniels. Ziegler was a wide receiver, punt returner, kick returner, and a three-time Division III All-American for this alma mater.

When his college days ended, Ziegler held a couple of coaching stints, including one at his alma mater, before he finally broke out into the NFL.

McDaniels was with the Denver Broncos at the time and asked Ziegler to join their personnel department.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t even know scouting existed at that time,” Ziegler said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “So, like I wasn’t, that wasn’t something like you know, I knew.

“I grew up in Northeast Ohio, I knew about football, I’ve been around football coaches my whole life. And that was really the scope of my knowledge about like the bigger picture.”

So when the call came to enter the big leagues working with personnel, Ziegler knew he had to take the job.

“To remain in football, I knew I had to coach, so I got into coaching and that was kind of the process,” Ziegler said. “When Josh gave me the opportunity to come up and interview for a scouting assistantship, that’s really the first time.”

While Ziegler did have opportunities to go back to coaching, there was something with scouting that made him stick with it.

“I mean you hear scouting, but I really didn’t know what it was, what it entailed,” Ziegler said. “I had some opportunities to go back into coaching when I started my career in scouting, but I just really fell in love with it.

“I started to have success in it. I started to get more responsibility and learn more about what it entailed and the whole team-building process.

“I fell in love with that process and that allowed me to kind of separate from the coaching world.”

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