From Titletown to the Top: How Two Former Packers Scouts Built Super Bowl Rosters
The Green Bay Packers won’t be suiting up for Super Bowl LX - instead, they’ll be watching like the rest of us. And for Packers fans, this particular matchup might sting a little more than usual.
On one sideline: the Seattle Seahawks, a familiar NFC rival. On the other: the New England Patriots, a franchise that’s been stacking Lombardi Trophies like cordwood since the turn of the century.
The Patriots have six Super Bowl wins since 2000. The Packers?
Just one.
But while Green Bay isn’t on the field this February, the team’s fingerprints are all over this game - and not just in the usual historical sense. The two men who built these Super Bowl rosters both cut their teeth in the Packers’ front office. And their journeys to the NFL’s biggest stage are deeply rooted in Green Bay.
Let’s start with Eliot Wolf. If the name sounds familiar, it should - he’s the son of Hall of Fame executive Ron Wolf, the architect of the Packers’ 1990s resurgence.
Eliot, now 43, is the Patriots’ executive vice president of player personnel and the de facto general manager. He’s the man behind New England’s post-Belichick rebuild, and he’s done it with a steady hand and a sharp eye for talent.
Across the field stands John Schneider, 54, the longtime general manager and now president of football operations for the Seahawks. Like Wolf, Schneider’s NFL roots run deep in Green Bay.
Both men grew up there. Both walked the same high school hallways - albeit at different times and under a different school name.
And both launched their NFL careers in the Packers’ front office.
Schneider got his start as a scout with the Packers back in 1993. After a few stops around the league, he returned to Green Bay in 2002 and quickly rose through the ranks.
By 2008, he was the team’s director of football operations. Two years later, the Seahawks hired him away to be their general manager - and the rest is history.
Under Schneider, Seattle has built a perennial contender, won a Super Bowl, and now returned to the big game with a roster he helped shape from the ground up.
Wolf’s path was a bit different, but no less impressive. He joined the Packers as a personnel assistant in 2004 and climbed the ladder to become director of football operations in 2016.
After a stint in Cleveland as the Browns’ assistant GM, he landed in New England. There, he helped guide the Patriots through one of the most pivotal transitions in franchise history - moving on from Bill Belichick.
Wolf played a key role in hiring head coach Mike Vrabel and developing second-year quarterback Drake Maye, who’s now leading the Patriots into the Super Bowl spotlight.
It’s a remarkable twist of fate: two men from the same hometown, shaped by the same franchise, now leading two of the NFL’s elite teams on opposite sides of the Super Bowl.
As Ron Wolf put it: “Just think about this - two guys from the same high school up there in Green Bay are essentially the general managers of the two teams that are playing for the Super Bowl. Think about that now, from that little town of 100,000 people.”
Green Bay might not be playing for a title this year, but its legacy - and its influence - will be on full display when the confetti falls.