Dolphins GM Search Tracker: Down the Home Stretch?

The Miami Dolphins have reached the final quarter of their GM search, and the list of finalists for the position offers a nice balance along with little surprise.

The Dolphins announced Wednesday night that four candidates will be having in-person interviews this week after they were among the eight who earlier interview via Zoom.

Those four candidates, who should be considered finalists even though there's nothing to prevent Miami from adding other candidates at some point, are Jon-Eric Sullivan of the Green Bay Packers, Josh Williams of the San Francisco 49ers, Chad Alexander of the L.A. Chargers and Champ Kelly, who finished the 2025 season as the interim GM after the team moved on from Chris Grier on October 31.

This development would seem to eliminate from contention, Rich McKay of the Los Angeles Rams, Alec Halaby of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Tariq Ahmad and R.J. Gillen of the San Francisco 49ers.

BREAKING DOWN THE FINALISTS

As was the case with all eight original candidates, the three outside candidates were employed by successful organizations — their three teams are in the playoffs — and have worked closely for GMs or scouting executives with a proven track record of finding talent.

Looking at the outside andidates further, there's some kind of connection that's worth mentioned.

Sullivan has spent 22 seasons with the Packers and is now their vice president of player personnel and now works with Matt LaFleur, a former colleague of Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel. Sullivan also is the son of longtime NFL offensive assistant coach Jerry Sullivan, who served as Dolphins wide receivers coach in 2004. Among his best work in Green Bay, Sullivan is credited for being the first scout who suggested the organization take a close look at quarterback Jordan Love from Utah State before the Packers selected him in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft with a pick ironically that they obtained from the Dolphins.

Williams has been with the San Francisco 49ers since 2011 and currently serves as the director of scouting and football operations. He was promoted to national scout in 2022 and to this current role just last year. Williams and McDaniel both worked for the 49ers for five years before the latter became head coach of the Dolphins in 2022.

Alexander, the son of former University of Miami and Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Hubbard Alexander, is assistant GM with the L.A. Chargers, and his intriguing connection is his long stint with the Baltimore Ravens where he worked with John Harbaugh. Let's just say that connection has been mentioned once or twice since Baltimore stunningly (or perhaps not so stunningly) fired Harbaugh on Tuesday.

Lastly there's Kelly, and we indicated here all along that we shouldn't be surprised if he indeed wound up getting the position because there was a reason after all the Dolphins brought him in senior personnel executive last March and made him the interim GM when Grier was fired as opposed to other in-house options like Assistant GM Marvin Allen.

THE HARBAUGH TWIST

Based on the fact they've already moved to in-person interviews suggests the Dolphins' GM search could end up being a pretty short one.

That is very interesting as it pertains to the Alexander-Harbaugh connection and this idea that the Dolphins would be bringing in a combo package with those two and ultimately fire McDaniel.

But it's also fair to suggest Alexander's candidacy has nothing to do with Harbaugh.

For one, reports indicate that Harbaugh will not start doing interviews for his next job — and he's most definitely in high demand — until next week. Then there's the other issue of whether the Dolphins did reach out to Harbaugh to express their interest in having him be their new head coach or they didn't because there are conflicting reports.

When it was reported that some teams that had not moved on from their head coach reached out to Harbaugh, it immediately was assumed the Dolphins were one of those teams because of owner Stephen Ross' affinity for Jim Harbaugh (he tried to hire him once, remember), but there are reports that the Dolphins have reached out and reports that they have not.

Remember that scouting apparently was the biggest priority for owner Stephen Ross and his team conducting the search because of the idea of a three-way working relationship with the GM, head coach, and Senior VP of Football and Business Administration Brandon Shore, who is the team's cap guru.

This would mean three independent voices working together, which means GM and head coach not tied together, but this is where maybe the chance to get Harbaugh would supersede the idea of that setup, and then maybe Alexander would become the top candidate based on his connection.

But Alexander is a good candidate on his own merit, so it shouldn't be assumed that Harbaugh is coming to Miami if the Dolphins wound up hiring Alexander.

As a reminder, Ross enlisted the help of ESPN analyst (and Hall of Fame quarterback) Troy Aikman as a consultant during the GM search to provide his input along with those of Shore, Tom Garfinkel, Dan Marino and Daniel Sillman, the CEO of Ross-owned Relevent Sports and Ross' son-in-law.