A survey of NFL scouts conducted by The Athletic revealed Jon-Eric Sullivan of the Green Bay Packers as a current personnel executive with the potential to eventually become a general manager in the NFL.
Of the 30 scouts polled by Ben Standig of The Athletic, two pointed to Sullivan, the Packers co-director of player personnel, as a future general manager to watch.
Entering his 16th season with the Packers, Sullivan has experience as both a regional college scout and a scouting director, having served eight years as a college scout, including four in the southeast region, and two more as the Packers director of college scouting. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst promoted him to co-director of player personnel, a title he shares with John Wojciechowski.
Within the hierarchy of the Packers personnel department, Sullivan sits below only Gutekunst and Milt Hendrickson, the director of football operations.
Gutekunst once described Sullivan as “indispensable” and the group’s “steady hand” in an interview with PackersNews.com in 2018.
Former Packers personnel executive Reggie McKenzie was also complimentary of Sullivan.
“Over the years you could feel his confidence growing and building, year in and year out,” McKenzie told Michael Cohen of PackersNews.com. “I think the more he did it, the more he listened to other voices in the room, I think he developed a confidence level the way he felt comfortable stating what his reports (said for his area) and being able to verbalize to the rest of the room what he saw and what he felt and what everything was in his eyes.”
Sullivan, an all-conference receiver at Gardner-Webb in the late 1990s, joined the Packers in 2004 after completing the team’s scouting internship in 2003. His father, Jerry Sullivan, coached football for more than 40 years.
Earlier this year, Sullivan was rumored to be Mike McCarthy’s preferred GM choice if he got the head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns. McCarthy didn’t get the job, but he was later hired by the Dallas Cowboys.
Several former scouts under Ron Wolf and Ted Thompson have become NFL general managers, including McKenzie, Gutekunst, John Dorsey and John Schneider.