A crowd of New York media members inched toward Darren Mougey. Within moments, he was backing toward a nearby wall, surrounded, cameras and recorders and iPhones inches from his face. The crowd shouted questions at him, often at the same time. Eyes wide, he stepped back and took it all in, the realization that he was entering a new world, at the center of the storm for the first time in his career.
Those were the moments after he was introduced as the Jets’ new general manager in January. About a month later, at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Mougey felt it again. Bombarded. This time he stood on an elevated platform, staring down at the judging eyes of a media horde in Indianapolis, and his eyes widened again. He needed a moment to process what was in front of him: The attention.
Over the last decade, Mougey had floated anonymously — comfortably — around the halls at the combine, serving in a background role with the Denver Broncos, working his way up the organizational ladder after starting out as an intern. He hasn’t changed much over the years, the same unassuming giant — he’s 6-foot-5 — that his friends knew as a teenager. He’s still in a group text message with his core friends from Chaparral High School in Arizona. They describe him as “the glue to our crew,” the one that brings them all together. Over the years, they’d go on golf trips and travel the country; Mougey was often the one planning it all. Over the years, he’s found himself as the “glue guy” in quarterback and coaching rooms, dating back to his college days. At San Diego State, the quarterback room included one of the NFL’s best head coaches, as well as a future offensive coordinator he’ll be working with in New York. After his playing days ended, he worked on a high school football staff with a future NFL general manager, NFL scout and prominent college head coach.
He was never the most recognizable face in the room, and it never bothered him. Now, he’s at the forefront, in tandem with head coach Aaron Glenn, in an attempt to lead a moribund New York Jets organization out of its doldrums, a foray to snap a 14-year playoff skid, the worst in the NFL. Many have tried, and failed. But his friends and mentors feel he’s ready for this moment.
Mougey often thinks about standing on the field after the Broncos won the AFC Championship in 2016, the confetti falling onto his head. He was determined to feel that way again. Monday, his first foray into free agency as the Jets general manager will begin, his first attempt at crafting the roster in his image, and working with Glenn to find what that might be.
“This is what he’s meant to be doing,” said John Peel, one of Mougey’s closest friends. “When you have these conversations and see that he can hold his own in any room, you just know that he’s meant to be in front of grown men, making grown-man decisions.”
When Mougey was a kid — a very tall kid — his mother would bring a birth certificate to soccer games to prove to other parents that he was in the right age group. He was 5-foot-8 by the end of seventh grade, and 6-foot-2 by the start of high school, and at that point he’d been training to be a quarterback for years. Mougey’s father, Doug, was a quarterback at Southern Illinois and coached his son throughout his youth, instilling his work ethic.
When Mougey was in seventh grade, doctors found a tumor in his dad’s brain — Doug passed away six months later. His mother was forced back to work; the care of Darren’s younger brother, Robby, fell to Darren and his sister, Stefanie. Going through that centralized his focus.
“They all leaned on Darren and he was the man of the house,” said Peel.
Those days, playing football on the playground, Peel and Mougey were always rivals. It flipped in middle school, when Peel became Mougey’s favorite receiver — and it stayed that way through high school. After his dad passed, Mougey focused squarely on making it in football, in some fashion, to honor his father, and to take care of his family. In high school, he stopped drinking soda and eating junk food, prioritizing health and fitness. He spent more time on the practice field or in the film room than out with his friends, Peel said. Matt Boatman, a high school teammate, said he remembers Mougey “training incessantly” in the offseason. He studied opponents, scouted their tendencies to learn how he could beat them. As a freshman, he was the JV starting quarterback. By the end of the year, Mougey was called up to varsity, the first of his friends to make it. He took over as a junior and became a star, and that’s when colleges came calling. A dual-threat quarterback, Mougey was viewed as one of the top recruits in Arizona.
Images from Mougey’s high school yearbook, including a photo with head football coach Robert Waters (top right). (Courtesy of Chaparral High School Athletics)
“There’s not a bad thing that you can say about Darren, except for maybe our opponents, because Darren gave them hell,” Peel said. “Darren was a vicious human being on the field. His stature and presence was there and he made other teams feel that.”
In 2002, Boatman, a kicker, was called up to varsity as a freshman and made a game-winning field goal in a playoff game, pushing Chaparral to the championship game — in celebration, Mougey lifted him up and carried him off the field on his shoulders. Against Phoenix Greenway in next week’s Arizona Class 4A championship game, Mougey threw an 18-yard touchdown throw to Peel with three minutes left to tie the game, then led a last-minute touchdown drive to win it.
“If you needed a big third-down conversion, he was always money,” Boatman said. “He always got the job done. Always. He won a ton of games, set a bunch of records. He was just a stud, and he was very driven. He had a clear determination and goal-oriented mindset. He was ambitious, a natural leader — and you couldn’t ask for a better teammate.”
He still has the third-most passing yards in Chaparral history (4,354) and the second-most passing touchdowns (55). By the end of his career, his scouting report didn’t even sound real: A 6-foot-5 quarterback that could throw it 60 yards flat-footed and run a 40-yard dash in 4.53 seconds. Tom Craft had to have him at San Diego State.
Kevin O’Connell was biding his time in 2003, waiting his turn after Craft opted to redshirt him as a freshman. He kept a close eye on Craft’s 2004 recruiting class. He noticed when the Aztecs aggressively pursued a three-star quarterback from Arizona, getting a commitment from the recruit in December. Then he saw him on campus, a 6-foot-5 kid with blonde streaks in his hair.
O’Connell remembers thinking: Who is this “hotshot, Hercules-looking fella from Arizona,” he said recently. “I remember thinking: Holy cow, I’ve got my work cut out for me to stay on the field.”
Craft knew he wanted Mougey to be the jewel of his 2004 recruiting class, even if O’Connell was already in the fold. He sat with Mougey on a recruiting visit to Arizona and was impressed with his football knowledge, “intuition” and desire to pursue a business major, one of the most challenging academic programs at SDSU. He could tell Mougey was a coach’s son. One caveat for a commitment: Mougey’s mother would only let her son consider San Diego State if Craft promised he would resist the temptation to move him off quarterback. Craft promised, even going so far as to delaying the enrollment of his own son, Kevin — also a quarterback — to ensure that Mougey would get a fair shot at quarterback. It worked. Mougey committed to the Aztecs, and stayed committed even as other schools, like Arizona and Arizona State, came calling.
“We were ecstatic to get him,” Craft said.
Mougey competed with O’Connell and Matt Dlugolecki to start as a freshman; O’Connell ultimately won out and Mougey redshirted. (New Jets offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand was a walk-on quarterback for SDSU that year too.) In 2005, Craft worked in some packages to get Mougey involved in the offense. He threw nine passes and ran three times in a season–opening loss to UCLA, and had a similar role throughout that season. While his playing time was limited, Mougey was making an impact behind the scenes. Kevin Craft said it was impactful the way Mougey would break down film, that he had “an eye for talent” and a remarkable ability to articulate his thoughts and explain how to attack other team’s weaknesses.
“He was a coach’s dream,” Tom Craft said. “He was a big guy, athletic, smart and had a great attitude and a great work ethic. I was really fortunate to have my time with him.”
Mougey played two seasons as a dual-threat quarterback for the Aztecs before moving to wide receiver. (Jeff Hanisch / Imagn Images)
Craft was fired at the end of that season and replaced by Chuck Long. In the first game of 2006, O’Connell was struggling against UTEP and the Aztecs had fallen behind 27-3, so Long inserted Mougey. The redshirt sophomore proceeded to score two rushing touchdowns and lead another scoring drive to bring it to 27-24. They eventually lost, but Mougey showed his mettle. Postgame, as always, he didn’t have much to say: “I just try to do the best I can when I get an opportunity to play. I was excited to get out there.”
Craft’s firing, though, also meant the promise that Mougey would never be moved off the quarterback position was also gone. Long wanted to make him a tight end role to capitalize on his size, but he needed him to bulk up. When Mougey went home that offseason, he rarely went out with his friends to party — or if he did, he’d just drive them. When coaches asked him to put on weight, “he dedicated his life to eating,” Peel said. “He wouldn’t go out because he didn’t want to skip meals.”
He spent his last two seasons at SDSU as a wide receiver, compiling 805 yards and six touchdowns, showing enough to get a shot as an undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons in 2009 and then the Arizona Cardinals in 2010, when he lived at home with his mom and drove to work for offseason workouts. In between those two gigs, he spent a season working at Chaparral, coaching up wide receivers and tight ends on head coach Charlie Ragle’s staff. It was the first time he really started thinking about life after his playing career. On that staff, he was surrounded by people who helped to shape his identity as a football scout: Dave Ziegler (the former Raiders GM) was a school guidance counselor and also on Ragle’s coaching staff, as was Kenny Dillingham (now the Arizona State head coach) and Bryan Chesin, a Broncos scout. Mougey, often, was the unifier of the group.
“The dude’s a grinder, a diligent worker, a great human being and an all-around great guy,” Ragle said. “He’s absolutely earned what he’s got.”
Mougey is looking to turn around a Jets franchise with the longest playoff drought in the NFL. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
Phones all over the Phoenix-area vibrated simultaneously on Jan. 24, when the news first surfaced that Mougey might be getting the Jets GM job. It turned out to be true. His friend group was over the moon. Boatman was at a sports bar watching golf when it came across the ticker; he texted his old high school teammates, and other work friends to brag: Hey, this is my old high school teammate. How cool is this?
For Peel, Chesin and all the other lifelong friends in that childhood group thread, this was a long time coming. They remembered the moments when they ragged on Mougey for choosing to work out or watch film rather than go out with them, though they always knew it would end up in something like this. Peel often wondered whether he’d get into coaching or try to, one day, become an NFL general manager.
This was always the end goal. “Darren always had his mind set on something of this stature, coaching or GMing,” Peel said. “He just went to work, put his head down and knew that, some day, it was going to pay off no matter where he was starting out. Once he took the role of scouting for the Broncos, all of us were like: He’s going to be the GM of the Cardinals one day. That was our dream.”
Along his path, his friends sometimes feared for his job security, especially once John Elway, who hired him, transitioned out of being Denver’s GM and into a consultant role once George Paton was hired. Instead, Paton promoted Mougey — twice, most recently to assistant general manager in 2022, when Paton feared losing him to another organization.
Mougey became Paton’s right hand man. He sat in on every head coaching interview in both 2022 and 2023, including when Glenn interviewed for the Broncos job in 2022, a crucial moment in their relationship that helped Mougey win Glenn over this time around, when the head coach had significant say over who the Jets were going to hire as GM. Mougey oversaw the pro and college scouting departments and played a crucial role in the Broncos’ process last year, which saw them move on from Russell Wilson and land Bo Nix in the NFL Draft, an impactful experience that should serve him well as the Jets move on from Aaron Rodgers and try to find their own long-term franchise quarterback.
“Moug was instrumental for me the last four years, kind of my go-to guy for everything,” Paton said. “He was a part of every decision we made — good, bad. I think the thing that sticks out with Moug is everything he’s seen. He’s been a part of Super Bowl teams. He’s been a part of rebuilds. He’s been a part of everything in between.
“I always thought he was a hidden gem. I was surprised when other teams weren’t talking to him, so I thought I might have him for a few more years. I knew if he just had an interview, he had a really good chance of getting a job because he’s going to blow away an interview. He’s really smart and really intelligent. He has a plan. He knows what he wants. He knows how to build.”
Mougey spent years climbing the NFL ladder, biding his time, waiting for an opportunity, like this. Now the pressure is on. For the Jets, patience is no longer a virtue, not around here.
(Top photo: Kevin R. Wexler / NorthJersey.com via Imagn Images)
