Agreed he is being groomed for the position and they've said for a while now that he's our most natural talent scout.
We've heard this said, but where is the evidence on the football field?
10 of Wolfs 11 years in an official capacity with the team have been on the Pro Personnel side of scouting. I tend to discount what he might have done at 10 years old sitting at dad's knee, or what might have been in that first scouting report at age 14.
Pro Personnel guys have two main jobs:
1. Keeping up the players around the league from the standpoint of FA and waiver wire opportunities or the rare trade.
2. Advance scouting of the opposition, with input into game planning.
With respect to point 1., Wolf might be characterized as a Maytag repairman. Other than the guys rotating in, out and through the PS, the Packers have engaged in relatively little FA activity, and most of the guys brought in on the cheap were busts...names like Saturday, Muir, Hargrove, Mulligan, et. al.
2014 was the biggest FA grab of the Thompson era with big ticket Peppers and Guion a starter. It's important to note these guys came out of the division, with Thompson/McCarthy/Capers having seen plenty of Peppers and some of Guion twice per year.
PS guys don't have much, if any, pro tape; college scouting reports have as much to do with selecting those guys as any pro scouting input.
As for point 2, scouting the opposition is about identifying what pro players do well or poorly today; that does not involve the projections or imagination involved in college scouting.
This is not to say Wolf will scale up into a poor GM; it says he's entirely unproven in college scouting and has not been called upon very often in assessing the FA market.
Now, as Director of Player Personnel, Wolf will presumptively be overseeing pro and college scouting. We'll just have to wait and see if this promotion yields better drafts in the next couple of years.
And if there is any notion that E. Wolf yields a two-fer with dad on the phone every day to discuss draft prospects that's likely seriously misguided.