The Miami Dolphins’ general manager search that started Monday is already down to four finalists as of Wednesday night.
The Dolphins will have interim GM Champ Kelly, the Los Angeles Chargers’ Chad Alexander, the Green Bay Packers’ Jon-Eric Sullivan and San Francisco 49ers’ Josh Williams move on to in-person interviews this week.
That eliminates four other candidates who were interviewed remotely early this week: the 49ers’ Tariq Ahmad and RJ Gillen, the Philadelphia Eagles Alec Halaby and Los Angeles Rams’ John McKay.
Miami is clearly prioritizing a pair of qualities: executives coming from a scouting background and who are in prominent roles with winning organizations.
Aside from Kelly, who is the internal candidate and stepped up from senior personnel executive when the Dolphins fired ex-GM Chris Grier Oct. 31, the other three are with teams playing for the playoffs, which begin over the weekend.
Kelly was with the Denver Broncos when they built a Super Bowl-winning roster under John Elway in 2015. Between then and now, he has been with the Raiders and Bears.
Williams, director of scouting and football operations for the 49ers, has held his current title for two seasons. From 2022 to 2023, he was a national scout after five years (2017-21) as an area scout.
Sullivan has held the vice president of player personnel role in Green Bay since 2022. From 2018 through 2021, he was co-director of player personnel. Prior to that, he scouted the Southeast and Central Plains regions over eight years as a scout for the Packers.
Alexander, who just arrived with the Chargers last year as assistant GM, spent the previous five seasons with the New York Jets as their director of player personnel and, before that, spent 20 seasons in Baltimore, mostly in the scouting department. Alexander became a known candidate Tuesday, after the other original list of seven was announced Monday.
The Dolphins’ search team includes owner Steve Ross, his son-in-law Daniel Silman, president and CEO Tom Garfinkel, senior VP of football and business administration Brandon Shore and Hall of Fame quarterbacks Dan Marino and Troy Aikman.
Coach Mike McDaniel, who remains in his role at the helm days after the end of the season, also said at his end-of-season, news conference, he is also involved, possibly to a limited extent.
Whoever lands the job will have a difficult task ahead of him to turn around a franchise that has gone 25 years without a playoff win. Miami is over the league’s projected salary cap next season, while having to find a way out from Tua Tagovailoa’s burdensome contract after the former franchise quarterback was benched late in the year.
This story will be updated.