One of Cincinnati’s scouts got his dream job.
The Cincinnati Bengals already had the smallest scouting department in the NFL, but now that will be one name shorter as Christian Sarkisian will be headed to Northwestern to become their athletic department’s general manager.
Sources: Northwestern is set to hire Cincinnati Bengals scout Christian Sarkisian as the athletic department’s new general manager. He’ll oversee all aspects of Northwestern’s salary cap, with his emphasis being on football. pic.twitter.com/NWZTYePAbU
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) May 13, 2025
He’s a Northwestern graduate school alum who worked for the football program for three seasons in various roles. He brings the skill set of evaluation, negotiation and cap management from his time in the NFL.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) May 13, 2025
As ESPN’s Pete Thamel notes, Sarkisian was a Northwestern alumnus, so clearly, this job had a draw beyond title and money. It, however, hasn’t been uncommon for NFL scouts to be making the jump to college football as of late.
The changes to college football now see teams having to not only overlook their 105-man roster but constantly scout the transfer portal, as any little advantage there could be the difference between a championship and a season missing out on the playoffs.
Sarkisian is the latest to fill a general manager role at the college level, which is getting more and more support as the age of relying on college coaches to recruit and be in charge of the on-field team seems to be a dying concept as players and coaches are constantly on the move year after year.
What does this mean for Cincinnati, though? Well, the team had six scouts previously, so this drops them down to five. In a world where many teams are fighting for more scouts, the Bengals have been content with the “less is more” strategy. They also include their coaches quite a bit in the process, but there is only so much they can do during the season.
This position needs to be filled as soon as possible. In a perfect world, it would be filled with several scouts. You can tell by how the higher-ups in the front office spoke that this was a decent blow to the department.
“Christian has been an invaluable member of the Bengals organization since he joined the team seven years ago,” Bengals President Mike Brown told Geoff Hobson at Bengals.com. “He is bright and hard-working, but most importantly, he is a good person. He deserves this opportunity. Northwestern made a smart move in hiring him.”
The praise also came from Sarkisian’s direct superior.
“Christian is perfect for this vital leadership role at Northwestern,” Tobin said. “He has a keen eye for talent on all levels and a great feel for what it takes to succeed. He’s a team player with outstanding organizational skills and leadership.”
Sarkisian’ credits the Bengals organization for where he is now, and it appears to be something he plans to take with him to Northwestern.
“One huge thing I’m taking from my time with the Bengals and I’m instituting here at Northwestern is I am not going to silo anyone into just doing either high school or college scouting,” Sarkisian said. “Just like with the Bengals, they didn’t silo us into pro or college scouting, and I think that it allowed us to have a lot more conversations.
“There’s a lot higher level of interconnectedness. There’s a lot higher level of like a family environment, and it just fosters a lot more conversation and involving perspectives that maybe other NFL teams are missing.”
That gives you a good idea of how all-inclusive you have to be as a Bengal scout. Let’s just hope for Sarkisian’s sake that Northwestern is a little more willing to loosen the purse strings than his former bosses.