{"id":736250,"date":"2026-02-07T18:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736250\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:48:18","slug":"super-bowl-sunday-offers-a-packers-way-model-for-dolphins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736250\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Bowl Sunday offers a Packers Way model for Dolphins"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a way to peddle hope for the Miami Dolphins<\/a> fan to live vicariously through another Super Bowl. But, come on, if you think I\u2019m going to be a street pusher for an organization that\u2019s only proven the past two decades it has no idea which way is up \u2014 excuse me, do you think I\u2019m stupid? (Wrong answers only.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve stood on the elevator as it\u2019s taken everyone down, and down lower, through team owner Steve Ross\u2019 tenure with (long breath) Joe Philbin, Bullygate, White-Powder-Snorting Videogate, Tank-for-Tua, Tampering-for-Tom Brady, Brian Flores\u2019 lawsuit, Star-Players-Late-for-Practice-Gate and, always, No-Playoff-Win-in-25-Years-Gate.<\/p>\n

The primary stars of this game are the builders. They\u2019re the two behind-the-curtain general managers who thrived in the unromantic existence of the clammy-palmed draft room or the dice-rolling proposition of free agency to build cusp-of-championship rosters. Remember when the talk was wasting Dan Marino\u2019s career? What about my career?<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s the surgeon general\u2019s warning label to this column. Because here\u2019s the thing about this Super Sunday. It really does show the way out for the Dolphins, if it comes with this latest regime.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the stars going into Super Sunday aren\u2019t the quarterbacks since neither Seattle\u2019s Sam Darnold nor New England\u2019s Drake Maye have the developed pedigree.<\/p>\n

Nor are the stars the coaches, though both the Seahawks\u2019 second-year coach Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel in his first with the Patriots have shown their swaggering talent.<\/p>\n

Still, the primary stars of this game are the general managers.<\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s John Schneider and New England\u2019s Eliot Wolf rose up from young nobodies to graduate from Green Bay Packers University, too. Just like new Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan. All three also were together for several years on different career timelines to learn in a sound organization.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the lifeline, if you want to grab it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Packer Way is at the core of everything I learned about football,\u201d Schneider has said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Packer Way to me is just sort of draft and develop, extend your core performers from within, and it\u2019s about honesty, respect and treating people the right way,\u201d Wolf once said. \u201cIt\u2019s about people and developing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are words, just words. But look at them in practice. Seattle drafted 20 starters or significant contributors over the past four years. That includes All-Pro players, first-round receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and fifth-round cornerback Devon Witherspoon.<\/p>\n

New England\u2019s roster isn\u2019t as draft-developed considering Wolf\u2019s tenure started in 2024. But two rookies start on the offensive line. Four rookies start in all and two more contribute on a Super Bowl team. Imagine that, rookies impacting right away?<\/p>\n

Wolf\u2019s defining pick of Maye in 2024 set up everything good about this team\u2019s future, too. So, Maye was the last quarterback standing. So was Marino in 1983. Sometimes fortune smiles at you like that.<\/p>\n

The quarterback philosophy is central to the Packer Way. It can be seen by Schneider\u2019s previous Super Bowl teams in 2013 and 2014. He threw darts at the board with three quarterbacks to build that champion: an unproven Charlie Whitehurst, Green Bay free agent Matt Flynn and third-round pick Russell Wilson.<\/p>\n

A quarterback competition? That\u2019s been a no-no inside the Dolphins. But Wilson came out the winner, then a Super Bowl champion. But the other side of that is the Green Bay Way moves on from aging quarterbacks before they\u2019re done to go with rising young ones \u2014 Brett Favre was dumped for Aaron Rodgers, Rodgers for Jordan Love.<\/p>\n

Schneider traded Wilson to Denver rather than paying high money, picked up a good-not-great Geno Smith and then dumped Smith for Darnold. Voila.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t oversell this Green Bay Way as only draft-and-develop, though. New England and Seattle set things up to have beaucoup salary-cap space before this season. New England spent the most in the league at $365 million ($198M guaranteed). Seattle spent a third-most $243 million ($131 guaranteed.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big chunk of how New England rebuilt its defense and Seattle sprinkled stars on top its roster. But they spent smartly as opposed to \u2026 well, you know. They also traded smartly. Schneider, for instance, traded fourth- and fifth-round picks for Seattle receiver Rashid Shaheed. Think Buffalo wonders why it didn\u2019t get Josh Allen help like that?<\/p>\n

Schneider\u2019s background is he pestered then-Green Bay GM Ron Wolf with enough letters and phone calls that Wolf finally let gave him a menial job. Eliot Wolf is Ron\u2019s son, went to draft combines since age 10 and then started in the Packers front office learning a decade after Schneider in 2004.<\/p>\n

Sullivan had just quit his real-life job to start at the bottom inside the Packers then, too. His dad, Jerry, was a long-time NFL coach. So he grew up inside the game like Wolf. He also grew up inside a winning Packers organization like these Super Bowl GMs.<\/p>\n

Since Ron Wolf took over in 1991, the Packers have 25 playoff appearances in 35 seasons, including nine NFC Championship games and two Super Bowl wins (and one loss). They aren\u2019t perfect. Why did Bill Belichick\u2019s New England organization win six Super Bowls with Brady (and played in nine) while the Packers won one each with Rodgers and Favre?<\/p>\n

Still, the Packer Way is the sub-story of Super Sunday. It drops some crumbs for what Sullivan will attempt with the Dolphins. That\u2019s all the further I\u2019m going with the idea. You want to inject hope? That\u2019s on you. The past two decades demand some proof before going further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a way to peddle hope for the Miami Dolphins fan to live vicariously through another Super Bowl.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[217,7,95805,216,251,2087,249,6,261,505],"class_list":{"0":"post-736250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-dolphins","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jon-eric-sullivan","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-dolphins","13":"tag-miamidolphins","14":"tag-new-england-patriots","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-seattle-seahawks","17":"tag-super-bowl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116030846269020405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736250","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=736250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}