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Swan song Legacy of Packers' Wolf entrenched in conviction
Updated: Thursday April 19, 2001 3:55 PM
By Don Banks, Sports Illustrated When his work is done and retirement finally beckons, it will be the Aprils that Ron Wolf recalls most fondly. Springtime in the NFL is a time of cultivation and growth, and Green Bay's outgoing general manager has never tired of the endless process of sowing the seeds of a roster today, in order to reap one's rewards or failures in the fall. "This is the enjoyable time," Wolf said of NFL draft season. "This is the enjoyable part of what we do. I enjoy this aspect of the job tremendously, because of the opportunity to put into effect a belief. "I think that's what I enjoy most about the draft. The judgment element. That feeling that you have to do it. You've got to make a call, and you better get it done. You have to put a name on that card. It's a big kick. It's still a big kick." Wolf, who also serves as the team's executive vice president, enters his 10th and final draft in charge Green Bay's fortunes preparing for one last big kick. On June 1, he will retire and leave behind 38 years in professional football, tossing the keys to Packers head coach/general manager-to-be Mike Sherman. After having the final say on all Green Bay personnel decisions since November 27, 1991, Wolf will become just another interested observer in Packers nation.
His legacy as an NFL personnel man includes some spectacular successes (Brett Favre), some ignominious misses (John Michels), and an unabashed willingness to follow his gut in pulling the trigger on a move. In hindsight Wolf's greatest strength was not that he was always right, but that he never was afraid to be wrong. "I probably go with my gut more than I should," said Wolf, who has seen his Packers qualify for the playoffs in six of his nine seasons in Green Bay, including back-to-back Super Bowl trips in 1996-97. "A lot of times it gets crazy in there [the draft room], with everybody voicing their opinion. But you'd be surprised when the nut-cutting's on the line, you can hear a pin drop. That's when it's up to you. That's a moment that we enjoy." Saints second-year general manger Randy Mueller considers Wolf a mentor of sorts. And a model for how to operate in the modern-day NFL. "The thing about him is he's always willing to make a deal, and always trying to get better," Mueller said. "That's something I think everybody can learn from. You're going to make some mistakes, but he has the confidence in his ability that that's not going to stop him from making another deal. "He's always pro-active instead of reactive. He's always out front. And in this day and age, when the business of pro football has changed so much the past six or eight years, he has adapted to everything. He has always stayed aggressive."
Still beating the bushes to find football playersDespite his many different executive titles in a career that has spanned two stints with the Raiders, and one each with the New York Jets, Tampa Bay, and Green Bay, Wolf has remained true to his first calling. He is first, foremost and lastly a football scout. He has a well-trained eye for finding talent, and never has lost his desire and willingness to get out and hit the road in search of players. At 62, playing in an arena that is increasingly a young man's game, Wolf was as active this off-season as when he an awed 25-year-old learning at the knee of Raiders owner Al Davis. "It'll be hard to match what he's done," Mueller said. "One of the big things is he has never gotten away from his area of expertise - finding and evaluating players. As fancy as you make this job, that's still what it comes down to, evaluating players. He's a scout. You've got to beat the bushes and find football players. That's how he came up in the business." Capable of turning his always sharp wit on himself, Wolf bristles when asked his draft philosophy, or his secret of talent evaluation. "I'm sure I don't have one," he says dryly. "Everybody goes in trying to do the same thing that we try and do. We try and fill the holes that need to be filled. Where we get in trouble is when we deviate from that. When we try to be cute or start to actually believe our clippings, that we're as brilliant as we are. That's when you out-think yourself and do things you should never do." Last year, Wolf made it nine consecutive non-losing season in Green Bay thanks to three rather low-profile trades that wound up paying big dividends. Where would the Packers have been had Wolf not swung deals for key contributors like running back Ahman Green, linebacker Nate Wayne and kick returner Allen Rossum? Probably staring at the vicinity of 6-10 rather than the uplifting just-out-of-the-money 9-7 that Green Bay finished. "I would agree with that," Wolf said, not immodestly. "Sure. What Ahman Green came in here and did after we lost Dorsey Levens was unbelievable. And the other two guys contributed heavily." In an era where NFL trades have all but gone the way of the drop-kick, thanks to the discouraging effects of salary cap acceleration, Wolf still reigns as a deal-maker extraordinaire. The Packers are the NFL's winningiest team since the dawn of free agency (1993), and Wolf has proven over and over again that he will use every avenue open to him to upgrade his roster. "Ron's kind of laid back and sometimes people think he's not all that intense about things," said Vikings vice president of player personnel Frank Gilliam, who has competed in the NFC Central against Wolf throughout his entire Green Bay tenure. "But Ron is intense. You think he's not thinking and he's thinking. "He understands football and he understands the people who play football. He understands the NFL. He knows how things fit together. He's a very bright guy. Now, if we didn't make mistakes in our job, they couldn't afford to pay us. But the guy's been to Super Bowls. He's coached, he's scouted and he's been an executive. What hasn't he done? He's done everything a guy can do in this game."
Wolf took three steps that remade the PackersNo matter what else he accomplished in Green Bay, Wolf assured himself of Packers immortality with three bold moves: Hiring Mike Holmgren to replace Lindy Infante as head coach in January 1992; trading a 1992 first-round pick, 19th overall, to Atlanta for an overweight, out-of-control young quarterback named Brett Favre; and luring defensive end Reggie White as the game's first big-name free agent in 1993. All three acquisitions provided the backbone of Green Bay's return to playoff glory and the 1996 Super Bowl-winning team. Few topics render Wolf as quietly reflective as Favre, who rightly represents his career's crowning achievement. "It certainly was," Wolf said. "It's the shrewdest thing I've personally ever done with a draft pick. I knew the second week of training camp that year that we were right. Mike Holmgren called me in the office and said that we're going to have to do something with the quarterback situation, because the other guy [Favre, not incumbent starter Don Majkowski] is far superior. I felt really good about that." Around the league, every general manager who was on the job in the spring of 1992 knew that Favre had no future with the Falcons and was on the market. But only Wolf got the deal done, to his everlasting credit. "He had a conviction on the guy and he stayed with that conviction," said Bucs longtime personnel director Jerry Angelo. "He did not let, as most would have, the stuff that was coming out of Atlanta about Favre affect him. That was his greatest moment. That goes unparalleled. I don't remember anyone doing what he did in that situation, and I think you really have to applaud him for that. "Ron makes the mistakes that we all make. He's not immune to those. But how do you measure a Hall of Fame quarterback and the way he went out and got him? And then there was Holmgren and Reggie White. He stood up and made the calls on those. You can't minimize a great coach, a great defensive player and a great quarterback. I think that says it all." With this draft, Wolf has one more opportunity to deepen the indelible mark he has left on the Packers. Fittingly, Green Bay has been identified as the team most likely to swing a deal to move up in the first round, from their No. 10 position. Already, the Packers have improved their first-round position from No. 17, and picked up an extra third-round selection, thanks to two deals involving former reserve Green Bay quarterbacks Aaron Brooks and Matt Hasselbeck. Once the draft is done, Wolf will make one final choice and one last move: To slip quietly into retirement, relocating to a new home that awaits in Annapolis, Md. It is a transaction that no doubt has been well scouted out.
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