Jon-Eric Sullivan Brings Right Team Building Strategy to Miami
For the past quarter-century, the Dolphins have made the wrong moves in building the roster.
Instead of building through the draft and developing depth across the team, Miami has routinely fallen into a trap and tried to cut corners.
Every single regime since 2008, when the Dolphins hired Tony Sparano, Miami has done this.
They promised to build from the inside out, and then they splurged, acquiring Brandon Marshall via trade in 2010.
That failed.
Joe Philbin tried to clean up the mess in 2012, and then just a year later, added Mike Wallace and Ndamukong Suh in free agency.
Adam Gase replaced Philbin and chose to add expensive free agents, lasting only three seasons at the helm.
Both Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel also tried to expedite rebuilds by adding high-priced free agents.
All the blame cannot just be put on the head coaches, though.
It was a failure of the organizational structure that Miami had in place.
With each coach or GM firing that took place under Stephen Ross’ ownership, the Dolphins never fully cleaned house.
Now, in 2026, it seems like they have finally taken the right step to fully reset the organization.
Late last week, they made the hiring of Jon-Eric Sullivan official.
Sullivan spent his entire career with the Green Bay Packers front office, and that is a good thing.
Green Bay is notorious for drafting, developing, and then later extending its key home-grown players.
Whether it has been Jordan Love, Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, or Tucker Kraft, the current iteration of the Packers offense is made up of players that Sullivan had a hand in drafting.
If you go back even further, such as 2018 with Elgton Jenkins or 2019 with Rashan Gary, the team that has owned the NFC North has had its biggest stars come from the draft.
Then, when they feel the team is close to competing for a championship like they did earlier this year with Micah Parsons, they use their assets and go all-in.
However, here is the key.
Sullivan and the other Packers’ execs built such a strong roster that they were only one player away from being a championship contender.
That is something that previous Dolphins’ regimes never understood.
They always sacrificed crucial assets for a quick fix, and then when injuries and attrition hit, they never had the depth or enough young talent to overcome those hardships.
That is why Sullivan is such a strong hire.
He will build the roster with the right character players through the draft to build up the team’s depth.
Then, unlike previous regimes, he will extend the players that are part of the team’s future instead of letting them be successful elsewhere.
When the time is right, he will add a game-changer like Parsons to put the team over the top.
I have full confidence in Jon-Eric Sullivan as the next GM of this franchise.
You should, too.
