Who is Champ Kelly? Meet interim GM who will guide Dolphins at trade deadline
Twenty years ago, Champ Kelly was working as a software/quality engineer at IBM, forging the next chapter of his life after four seasons playing indoor professional football.
Now he’s an interim general manager of an NFL team for the second time in three years.
Kelly, whose given name is Anthony, was named the Dolphins’ interim GM on Friday after the team and general manager Chris Grier mutually parted ways.
“Champ Kelly will serve as interim general manager effective immediately, and we will begin our search process for a new general manager,” owner Stephen Ross said. “I want to thank Champ for stepping up and his commitment to the Dolphins success this season.”
His appointment comes two years to the day that he was named interim general manager of the Raiders, following their dismissal of Dave Ziegler.
That Raiders’ promotion came just after the trade deadline.
This time, he will navigate Miami through what could be a frenetic four days; the team reportedly has fielded calls on receiver Jaylen Waddle (who hadn’t been made available as of this week), edge rushers Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb and Matthew Judon and cornerback Rasul Douglas, who is now dealing with a toe injury.
If Kelly — who turns 46 on Thanksgiving — impresses Ross in the weeks ahead, he might receive consideration for the full-time job.
Kelly, hired by the Dolphins as a senior personnel executive last March, has some admirers in the league and received consideration for multiple GM jobs. He interviewed for the Jets GM job that went to Joe Douglas in 2019; the Broncos GM job that went to George Paton in 2021 and the Jacksonville GM job that went to James Gladstone this past February.
After the Raiders ended the 2023 season with a 5-4 record with Antonio Peirce as the coach and Kelly the interim GM, owner Mark Davis considered Kelly for the permanent job but instead opted to hire former Chargers GM Tom Telesco in January 2024.
So who exactly is the man who will be leading the Dolphins’ front office while the team looks for a permanent successor to Grier?
In Kelly, the Dolphins will entrust day-to-day interim GM duties, for now, to a former All-Academic SEC receiver at Kentucky with expertise in computer science, 18 years of player evaluation in various roles and a kind heart.
Kelly founded Heart Power, a nonprofit which has hosted youth programs in several states.
He began working for the Broncos as a regional college scout in 2007 and eventually worked his way up to assistant director of pro personnel in 2011. He left the Broncos to join the Bears as their director of pro scouting in 2015 and was later promoted to assistant director of player personnel before leaving for the Raiders in 2022.
With Chicago, he graded the top 100 prospects in the draft, oversaw advanced scouting and contributed to the team’s free agent decisions.
His work at IBM came in handy; Kelly helped the IT team connect analytics and video in their scouting base and led the Bears’ shift in their NFL grading system to match their college system, according to a 2020 profile in The Athletic.
That Athletic story noted that Kelly grew up in difficult circumstances in Campbellton, Florida; his father sold drugs and his mother used them.
“She might get paid on a Thursday, give you some money and tell you she was going out but would be back in an hour or two,” Kelly said in that profile. “I knew she wouldn’t be back for days, sometimes weeks. But as a kid, you yearn for your mother, so I’d stay up. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I heard a sound, I thought it could be her.”
He was a cornerback, quarterback and running back at Graceville High and helped lead his team to four state playoff berths. At Kentucky, he switched positions from safety to cornerback to wide receiver and was the team’s starting slot receiver to start his final season, finishing with 18 catches, 289 yards and a touchdown.
Off the field, he was twice named to the SEC’s All-Academic team and received a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and a Master’s degree in business administration.
Bypassed by the NFL, he played defensive back and receiver for the Indoor Football League’s Lexington Horsemen. He said playing on both sides of the ball sharpened his evaluation skills.
“It helped me as a talent evaluator because you understand schemes a little better,” he said. “It allows you sometimes to know what someone is thinking in a particular situation. I know why his eyes were here, I know why he ran the route like this. Having that type of understanding also helps communication with the coaching staff when they tell me what they want to fit their schemes.”
He transitioned into computer science, working for IBM while spending off hours coaching defensive backs at Lexington Christian Academy.
When IBM dismissed him in a round of layoffs, the Lexington Horsemen’s owner hired him for a job in analytics and eventually promoted him to GM. But working in an NFL front office was the goal.
Per The Athletic, he sent a package — including his analysis of various players — to all 32 general managers at least twice a year over four years.
Kelly had just become an NFL agent when the Broncos offered him a college scouting job. He later became a pro scout, and former coach John Fox gave him credit for eyeballing some players on the 2015 Broncos defense, which ranked first in yards allowed and several other statistical categories.
“He was a big part of many decisions that put together one of the better defenses in NFL history, the 2015 Broncos,” Fox told The Athletic earlier this decade. “There’s no doubt in my mind he should be a GM.”
Kelly left the Bears to become the Raiders’ assistant GM in 2022. When he was named Raiders interim GM on Nov. 1, 2023, he said: “Make no mistake, I’m prepared for this position. I believe in the power of intercessory prayer. I know people all over the country are praying for me in this moment. ... I’m prepared for this because I know what I don’t know. There will be hiccups. It won’t be perfect. But I’m wise enough to know that God equips those he calls. I’m perfectly imperfect, but I know the source.”
He stayed on with the Raiders for nearly 13 months after Telesco’s hiring before leaving in February. The Dolphins hired him 25 days later, as this past free agent cycle was starting in mid-March.
If Kelly trades several players in the coming days, expect him to be transparent with them.
“We forget the person on TV, the superhuman guy who makes big plays is a real-life person with feelings, emotions, families, hurts, scars and insecurities,” Kelly said in that 2020 interview. “I want to know people at a level where I ask them how they are doing, and they say, ‘OK,’ but I can sense on their face they are not OK, I want to be able to stop them and say, ‘Look, what’s going on? You all right?’
“That matters more than me going out and finding a player. The dash on my gravestone, I don’t want it to be Champ Kelly — found good football players. I’d rather it be Champ Kelly — cared about me, listened to me and loved me, and showed me how to live with faith.”
Here’s what Mike McDaniel said at his Friday news conference, before the Grier news broke, and some injury updates.
This story was originally published October 31, 2025 at 1:25 PM.
