Eliot Wolf joined the Cleveland Browns on Wednesday and will serve as one of John Dorsey's top advisers as they try to rebuild a team that went winless last season.
Wolf, 35, the Green Bay Packers' director of football operations, picked the Browns over offers from the Packers and the Oakland Raiders, sources told ESPN.
Wolf is the second Packers scout Dorsey has hired since he became the Browns' GM last month. He also brought in Packers senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith as vice president of football operations.
"We're lucky to add Alonzo and Eliot to our personnel staff," Dorsey said in a statement. "Alonzo's 25 years of experience in the National Football League as a player, scout and personnel executive give him a unique perspective when it comes to evaluating talent and building a team. Alonzo and I share the same passion for this great game of football. We are going to set out to find talented football players that possess that same passion for the game.
"Eliot has been a fine executive in this league for some time now. It's been great to watch him grow up around this league when I was with him in Green Bay and from afar for the last five-plus years. He's been a big reason for the consistent success the Packers have experienced over the last decade. Adding Eliot and Alonzo to our personnel leadership group, that already includes Andrew Berry, will strengthen us and help us develop into the type of personnel department we need to achieve the success our great fans deserve."
The son of Hall of Fame general manager Ron Wolf, Eliot Wolf interviewed with the Browns on Tuesday. He had been scheduled to fly to Oakland, where he had an offer to work with Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie. Dorsey, McKenzie and Wolf all worked together in the Packers' personnel department.
"I'm so thankful for this opportunity and I'm really excited about joining the Cleveland Browns organization," Wolf said in the statement. "I really like the direction of where leadership is headed. We're going to build this team the right way and to be a part of that from the ground up is going to be special."
Wolf was one of four candidates who interviewed for the Packers' GM job that went to Brian Gutekunst. One of Gutekunst's first acts as GM was to offer Wolf a spot in his department as his "right-hand man." But when Wolf was passed over for the Packers GM job, it seemed more likely that he would leave than stay with Green Bay.
"Obviously, the people up there don't think he's worthy, or they would've hired him," Ron Wolf told ESPN earlier this week.
Eliot Wolf broke into the scouting business with the Packers in 2004 and was promoted five times, most recently to director of football operations in 2016. But in reality, he had been around the game much earlier than that. In fact, he wrote his first report on a player when he was 14 years old -- on linebacker Chad Scott, to whom Wolf gave a first-round grade before the draft. Scott ended up as the 24th overall pick in the draft.
Gutekunst likely will promote director of college scouting Jon-Eric Sullivan and director of pro personnel John Wojciechowski to be his top assistants.