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Packers promote Eliot Wolf, try to keep scouting department intact

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Who knows how much longer the Green Bay Packers will be able to keep Eliot Wolf around, but his promotion to director of player personnel on Friday should help them do so for a while.

The 32-year-old son of former Packers general manager Ron Wolf is widely considered to be a future NFL general manager.

The younger Wolf joined the Packers' personnel department in 2004 as a pro personnel assistant and was promoted to assistant director of pro personnel in 2008 and director of pro personnel in 2011.

The Packers signed general manager Ted Thompson to a contract extension last summer that runs through the 2019 NFL draft so if Eliot Wolf is next in line, he will have to wait out Thompson. Wolf is one of Thompson's top assistants along with senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith and director of college scouting Brian Gutekunst.

Those three could be the next generation of GM candidates to come from the Packers' personnel department, which has turned out Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider, Oakland Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie and Kansas City Chiefs general manager John Dorsey in the last six years.