Top Packers Scout Becomes Dolphins’ General Manager

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jon-Eric Sullivan, the Green Bay Packers’ vice president of player personnel since 2022, is the new general manager of the Miami Dolphins, a source confirmed.

Sullivan is the son of Jerry Sullivan, who spent 50 years as a college and NFL assistant, including as receivers coach of the Dolphins in 2004.

Last year, Jon-Eric Sullivan had three general manager interviews. He didn’t get any of those jobs, which had Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst knocking on the wooden podium at the draft.

“Jon-Eric’s a huge part of our process,” Gutekunst said. “Certainly someone that I’ve worked with for a very long time and leaned on for a lot of things. He’s absolutely 100 percent ready to run his own show, and I think that time’s coming. We’ll enjoy every minute we have with him.

“If he’s here for as long as I’m here, that’s great. But it’s kind of like, I want to see all these guys on our staff get these kind of opportunities.”

The Packers’ still have a veteran nucleus that includes director of football operations Milt Hendrickson, director of player personnel John Wojciechowski and director of college scouting Matt Malaspina.

Hendrickson and director of pro personnel Richmond Williams have been at their posts since 2019, and Wojciechowski and Malaspina were promoted into their roles in 2018.

“I think we’ve got a lot of guys that are ready right now and a lot of guys that are going to be ready in time,” Gutekunst said. “And that’s something that as a guy who’s been here and watched John Schneider, Reggie McKenzie, John Dorsey, Scot McCloughan get their opportunities.

“But as I watched that, there was a time there where I was like, ‘Are these guys ever going to leave?’ You know what I mean? Because you wanted to have an opportunity, too. So, I think it’s really healthy for our staff for these guys to be in the mix for these opportunities and I suspect not only Jon-Eric but a bunch of guys will be as we move forward here.”

Sullivan joined the Packers in 2003 as a scouting intern. From 2008 through 2011, he was the college scout for the Central Plains region. From 2012 through 2015, he got the key role as scout for the Southeast region. From there, he was promoted to director of college scouting in 2016, co-director of player personnel in 2018 and vice president of player personnel in 2022.

He played college football at South Carolina and Gardner-Webb. As a senior at Gardner-Webb in 1999, he caught 43 passes.

Last year, he got his first big opportunity to become a general manager when he interviewed with the Tennessee Titans, New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars.

“I guess the first thing I would say to that is I was very grateful for the opportunity to interview and grateful to the organizations who sat down and spoke to me,” he said at the draft. “Things will play out the way they play out and if it’s meant to be, it’s going to be. But I’m very blessed where I come to work every day.

“The guys that I work with, I can’t say enough about the people that I work with and have worked with over the years and what they mean to me. It would have been very bittersweet to walk out the door here. This is my 21st draft. So, yeah, to answer your question, I was very excited to get back here and get back to work with the guys and get through this process and try to better our football team.”

Last year, he spoke to reporters after the Packers picked mammoth offensive lineman Anthony Belton in the second round. Now that he’s running the show in Miami, maybe he’ll have a different personnel philosophy.

“It’s the old phrase, ‘Big doesn’t get small,’ especially when you play here in the NFC North,” he said. “We play in the cold and you can wear people down as the season goes along and the elements change. It’s kind of the way we were raised in this thing up here. We want to be big across the front, we want to physical, we want to be able to overwhelm with size and physicality. That’s what attracted us to him. He’s a good football player, and he happens to be a huge man as, well.”

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