Jon-Eric Sullivan is going into his first NFL Draft as a general manager with Jeff Hafley at his side, and the Miami Dolphins are leaning on a collaboration the two men say has not changed since they arrived together from Green Bay. Sullivan said he asks Hafley for his thoughts while watching film of offensive players, and sometimes the coach jumps in first with a simple verdict: “Hey, this guy wouldn’t scare me.”
That kind of exchange is the heartbeat of Miami’s draft room this spring. Sullivan said the relationship with Hafley remains the same, describing it as “tight as ever, thick as thieves. We’re in lockstep.” Hafley, who is also entering his first draft as a head coach, echoed the point with a blunt endorsement of the process: “There’s great collaboration.”
The stakes in Miami are hard to miss. The Dolphins have not won a playoff game in 26 years, and this draft is one of the clearest chances to change the shape of the roster. Sullivan said he has even woken up in the middle of the night dreaming that he is taking a tag off the board, a sign of how much the first draft has been on his mind.
Sullivan said the coaches matter enormously in that work. “The coaches are incredibly important to what we do,” he said, adding that their vision can give him clarity when he is evaluating players. But he also drew a line around the decision-making: the final call on draft picks is his, even if that means he and Hafley sometimes see a prospect differently.
“And I’m not going to ever go out of my way to shove a player down the throat of a coach that he doesn’t want,” Sullivan said. “But there will be times when maybe we see things differently. Ultimately, the final decision comes down to me, and I’m going to do what’s best for this place.”
That tension is what gives the draft its edge for a team trying to escape years of frustration. Sullivan said he wants Miami to keep focusing on “hitting a series of run-scoring doubles,” avoiding red flags, filling positions of need and adding players he views as wired right. Hafley framed the same idea in a broader way, saying the Dolphins want the best players, the toughest players and the guys with the highest character — players who love football and play it the right way.
The two men came to Miami from Green Bay, and they are now trying to turn a first joint draft into something more lasting than a shared origin story. For the Dolphins, the next few picks are not just about talent. They are about whether the franchise can finally match promise with the kind of players and instincts it has been chasing for a generation.
