{"id":662918,"date":"2026-01-08T04:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662918\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T04:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:39:11","slug":"packers-jon-eric-sullivan-advances-to-finalist-for-dolphins-gm-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662918\/","title":{"rendered":"Packers\u2019 Jon-Eric Sullivan advances to finalist for Dolphins GM opening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Miami Dolphins\u2019 general manager search seems to be moving quickly. On Wednesday night, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/2009089690058547287\" rel=\"nofollow\">ESPN\u2019s Adam Schefter reported<\/a> that the Dolphins have advanced to the second round of interviews, all in-person, for the position and are down to four candidates for the job. For what it\u2019s worth, Miami \u201cmutually parted ways\u201d with their previous general manager, Chris Grier, on Halloween, so they\u2019ve had significantly more runway than the Atlanta Falcons, the only other team with a general manager opening, who fired theirs on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The finalists for the job, per Schefter, include Jon-Eric Sullivan, the Packers\u2019 vice president of player personnel, who has been with the team since he was a training camp intern in 2003. From there, Sullivan was promoted to football operations department employee, central plains region south, southeast region scout, director of college scouting, co-director of player peronnel and finally his 2022 promotion to his current role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Packers fans are probably most familiar with Sullivan from draft weekend interviews, as he and Milt Hendrickson, director of football operations, are the most-interviewed members of the front office beyond general manager Brian Gutekunst. (Cap guru Russ Ball is an important member of the front office, but he hasn\u2019t really ushered in front of cameras before.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Sullivan was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acmepackingcompany.com\/2025\/2\/16\/24366913\/green-bay-packers-news-jon-eric-sullivan-finalist-for-jacksonville-jaguars-general-manager\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previously a finalist for the Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 general manager job in 2025<\/a>, a search which started very late after the team dragged their feet on the firing of Trent Baalke (he scared head coaching candidates away!) Sullivan had a second interview with the Tennessee Titans last year, a search run by a former Packers front office member (2009-2022) and current Titans\u2019 president of football operations Chad Brinker. Sullivan also interviewed with the Las Vegas Raiders, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Current Miami head coach Mike McDaniel is a close friend of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, and the list of initial candidates for the Dolphins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acmepackingcompany.com\/green-bay-packers-news\/77769\/dolphins-announce-they-will-interview-7-gm-candidates-including-a-packer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">included many front office members who had previously worked with McDaniel\u2019s close friends<\/a> (including Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay and San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan.) Early reporting claims, though, that GM candidates haven\u2019t been told that McDaniel will absolutely be their head coach in 2026, and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JosinaAnderson\/status\/2008904855931257079\" rel=\"nofollow\">Josina Anderson has reported<\/a> that the Dolphins have \u201cbeen in touch\u201d with former Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, currently the hottest coaching candidate on the market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Previously, Schefter had claimed that seven teams had called Harbaugh\u2019s representatives about becoming their 2026 head coach, despite only six jobs being available right now (aside from the Ravens, who just moved on from Harbaugh). When asked on ESPN Wisconsin today if the Packers were the team that called about Harbaugh, he said, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acmepackingcompany.com\/green-bay-packers-news\/77816\/schefter-on-matt-lafleurs-future-the-packers-absolutely-want-him-back\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I\u2019d be surprised<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The other candidates for the job, per Schefter, are Dolphins interim general manager Champ Kelly, 49ers director of scouting and football operations Josh Williams (obvious Shanahan connection there) and Los Angeles Chargers assistant general manager Chad Alexander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Dolphins\u2019 general manager search seems to be moving quickly. On Wednesday night, ESPN\u2019s Adam Schefter reported&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2049],"tags":[1227,217,7,2702,216,251,2087,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-662918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-dolphins","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-news","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-dolphins","14":"tag-miamidolphins","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115857638446458351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}