Vinny Cerrato is a former executive for the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

and

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He served as the Redskins' de facto

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

throughout the 2000s. Cerrato has also been an analyst and film actor.

Biography

Playing career

Cerrato played college football at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

, where he played

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

and wide receiver.

Football Career

Oakland Invaders Cerrato signed a contract with the

USFL The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

Oakland Invaders in January 1983, however, was cut in training camp a month later.

University of Minnesota

Cerrato started his career as a graduate assistant for the

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college athletics, college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and com ...

from 1983 to 1984, and he was promoted to recruiting coordinator in 1985, before leaving for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame

Before the NFL, Cerrato served as the football recruiting coordinator under Lou Holtz at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

. During that time, the Irish played in four Bowl games and won the 1988 NCAA National Championship.

San Francisco 49ers

Cerrato joined the

in 1991 as a scout, and later became the team's director of college scouting in June 1992, helping to draft players such as

Ted Washington Theodore Washington Jr. (born April 13, 1968) is a former American football nose tackle. He was drafted out of Louisville by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 1991 NFL Draft. He also played for the Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bil ...

Ricky Watters Richard James Watters (born April 7, 1969) is an American former professional football player who was a running back for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, and Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). Watters play ...

Dana Stubblefield Dana William Stubblefield (born November 14, 1970) is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). After graduating from Taylor High School in North Bend, Ohio, Stubblefie ...

and

Bryant Young Bryant Colby Young (born January 27, 1972) is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). A first-round draft pick out of University of Notre Dam ...

. In

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

, the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIX. It was also this during time that Cerrato appeared as an actor in the 1994 film ''Kindergarten Ninja''. In February 1995, Cerrato was promoted to director of player personnel, overseeing all college scouting and draft activities as well as pro scouting of NFL players and opponents.

Washington Redskins

Cerrato was hired by the

in 1999. During this time, he acquired older big name stars like

Bruce Smith Bruce Bernard Smith (born June 18, 1963) is an American former football defensive end who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 19 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills. He played college football at Virginia Tech, where he was ...

, Deion Sanders,

Irving Fryar Irving Dale Fryar, Sr. (born September 28, 1962) is a former American college and professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for seventeen seasons. Fryar played college football for the Universit ...

Jeff George Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...

, and Mark Carrier. He was then fired by

Marty Schottenheimer Martin Edward Schottenheimer (; September 23, 1943 – February 8, 2021) was an American football linebacker and coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) from 1984 to 2006. He was the head coach of the Kansas City ...

in 2001. During his brief hiatus from the Redskins, Cerrato worked for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

as a college analyst. Cerrato was subsequently rehired by

Daniel Snyder Daniel Marc Snyder (born November 23, 1964) is an American businessman and owner of the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL). He bought the team, then known as the Washington Redskins, ...

in 2002 as their vice president of football operations. On December 17, 2009, Cerrato resigned from the team. Cerrato and his tenure as General Manager has been frequently regarded as a failure by peer evaluators, and the media. Since then, Cerrato has appeared on various

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...

radio shows in the Washington and Baltimore area.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cerrato, Vinny Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American football quarterbacks American football wide receivers American male film actors Iowa State Cyclones football players Minnesota Golden Gophers football coaches National Football League general managers Notre Dame Fighting Irish football coaches San Francisco 49ers executives San Francisco 49ers scouts Washington Redskins executives People from Flushing, Queens