Pat Sheridan was a Milwaukee radio sports talk show host in the 1980s and he emphasized the main problem in Green Bay was the structure of the Packers organization. He envisioned Wolf’s role by advocating having one football man in charge of the team. I respected Sheridan and thought he was right. So I too was very excited when Wolf was hired and I read that he would be given complete control of football operations. Even if Wolf wasn’t the right person to be in control, at least the organizational structure had been corrected: No more sharing of power between the “GM”, HC and executive committee. And when Wolf began his search for a HC by finding out whether Bill Parcells wanted the job and ended up hiring the hottest HC prospect in Holmgren there was legitimate reason to be excited about the new VP of Football Operations. The sad-sack Packers had landed Holmgren.
No one can say what would have happened if Wolf didn’t take the job, but I disagree with Ketchman’s take that it was a lucky hire. Wolf was Harlan’s first choice and Harlan had talked to Wolf four years earlier when Wolf turned down the power-sharing “GM” job. He knew Wolf turned it down because he wanted to be a true GM. If for some reason Wolf hadn’t accepted the job and Harlan hired Bill Tobin or someone else on his list, as long as he would have been willing to fire that person if he didn’t perform, the structure of the organization would be in place, just looking for the man to turn it around.