Replaces Dawn Aponte, who heads to Miami Aaron Wilson
The Cleveland Browns made it official, announcing the hire of Matt Thomas as their new vice president of football administration.
Thomas' hire completes what amounts to a trade of salary-cap specialists.
Thomas, who worked previously for the Miami Dolphins, assumes the role that was held until now by Dawn Aponte. She's the Dolphins' new senior vice president of football operations.
Thomas was the Dolphins' vice president-general counsel of football administration.
With the Dolphins, he was responsible for several administrative functions, which included assisting with the management of the salary cap, player contract negotiations, football budgeting and acting as a liaison with the NFL Management Council on salary cap compliance and other labor and legal matters.
Aponte will report directly to Bill Parcells and Jeff Ireland and will oversee the team’s salary cap, player contracts and budgets. Aponte will also serve as the team’s liaison on league affairs.
“We are excited to have Dawn here in Miami,” Ireland said in a statement. “She is well respected throughout the NFL and has a broad set of experience at both the club and league level that will be a great benefit to our organization. At the same time, we thank Matt for all of his contributions to the Dolphins and wish him the best in Cleveland.”
Aponte previously served on the league’s Management Council as the vice president of labor finance. In her position at the NFL Management Council, Aponte represented the 32 clubs in dealings with the NFL Players Association and class counsel on salary cap and other labor-related matters.
Prior to joining the league office, Aponte worked for the New York Jets for nearly 15 years in various capacities, most recently as the club’s senior director of football administration.
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Feb 03, 2010
03:33 PM
Dawn Aponte is an AWFUL hire by the Dolphins for the following reasons:
1. She knows nothing about football and is known as Dawn "The Ice Girl" Aponte in terms of getting along with agents and colleagues.
2. Dawn Aponte could not even handle a simple renegotiation of Josh Cribbs contract.
3. She was fired by the Jets, took a "finance" position with the NFLMC, and fired by Mike Holmgren as soon as he took over as President of the Browns. So now she is rewarded for her incompetence with a front office job with the Dolphins???
4. There will now be huge gaps in terms of the work flow and dialogue between Tony Sparano, Jeff Ireland, Bill Parcells, player personnel executives, Mike Dee, and player agents that Dawn Aponte is way too incompetent to fill.
5. Brian Weidmeir and Matt Thomas were great in football operations/legal and now the hiring of Aponte makes the Dolphins a mediocre team with an even more mediocre front office to a rival AFC team like the Browns.
If Bill Parcells is being paid millions of dollars to hire incompetent non-football people like Dawn Aponte, Stephen Ross should think about selling the team immediately. The Dolphins have just gone from contenders to pretenders.