The Dolphins’ GM hire of Jon-Eric Sullivan reflects a franchise fully committed to the comprehensive change ownership promised
These aren’t your daddy’s Miami Dolphins.
The Miami Dolphins have officially secured new leadership. It was reported ahead of the Dolphins’ general manager search this week that the team wanted to move quickly. They were going to have the chance to do so thanks to a two-month head start on their search. And now, five days after their 2025 regular season ended, Miami has landed their next general manager.
It’s Jon-Eric Sullivan, the life-long Green Bay Packers executive with an impressive list of mentors and a quarter-century of experience helping to build the Packers as one of the perennial contenders in the NFC. The Dolphins’ hire may surprise some, given the buzz around coaching candidate John Harbaugh and the connection to another one of Miami’s finalists. But this was the right hire for the Dolphins based on what they were seeking.
Dolphins hire of Jon-Eric Sullivan as GM is a win for team-building focus and good process
The Dolphins’ decision to hire Sullivan could be connected back to the reports at the beginning of the hiring process that Miami was seeking a “scout and a team-builder”.
Sullivan has been a part of an organization that has methodically drafted well and prioritized building through the draft for years. It isn’t often that Green Bay splashes with big personnel moves in free agency or via trade; although ironically enough the Packers did trade two first-round picks for LB Micah Parsons this past summer.
Sullivan has been quoted in the past talking about how the NFL Draft is the “lifeblood” of an organization. And he’s been indoctrinated with two plus decades of that approach with the Packers while sharing rooms with names like John Dorsey, Ted Thompson, Brian Gutekunst, John Schneider, and others. If the Dolphins wanted a scout and they wanted a team-builder, they got one.
How this impacts the head coaching search? That’s next to find out.
But what the Dolphins need to be applauded for as much as anything here is not taking the cheese on a shortcut to a shiny object. John Harbaugh is a sensational coach. He’d be a terrific hire for the Dolphins, if they can land him. I’m sure the team will still offer pursuit and show interest. But Miami did not throw away two months of preparations on candidates to hire Chargers executive Chad Alexander simply to proactively appeal their vacancy to Harbaugh.
Miami added Alexander to their interview list a day later than the initial group of six, just hours before the news dropped that Harbaugh was shaking loose. And given Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ connection to the Harbaugh family, everyone leapt and assumed that the pieces were coming together for the Dolphins to abort all other focuses to go all-in towards that direction.
They haven’t. Instead, the clues from the start of the process led us to the candidate who seemed to have the best fit and pedigree — and Miami’s leadership didn’t chase the shiny object that could have very easily derailed all of their prior preparations.
That deserves some credit. And it also warrants excitement for what the Dolphins’ future holds as they embark on a rebuild filled with, as Ross put it yesterday, comprehensive change.