The progression of job titles in the last 2 years suggests Wolf is going through a college scouting management and cap management grooming process.
It's important to remember that prior to last season and since he graduated from the intern level, he's been exclusively on the Pro Personnel side with the exception of 2011 when he was Assistant Director of Player Personnel.
http://www.packers.com/team/staff/eliot-wolf/554e5cf2-a949-4cb5-8d85-11e979ac48b3
Except for 2011, where he may have pro-focused anyway, and I hope that was the case given the poor quality of that draft, you have to go back to his intern days for a time when he might have been immersed in college scouting, but reviewing film and writing reports at a tender age is not the same thing as managing the process.
As for his Pro Personnel work, he would have had two primary jobs: 1) scouting pro players as possible FA or trade acquisitions and 2) advance scouting of upcoming opponents.
As to the first point, the job has been largely that of the Maytag repairman, with his work bearing fruition primarily in filling out the practice squad. To hear Thompson talk about it, the way he jumped on Peppers was his idea. Even Guion was a guy Thompson was watching play against his team twice per year for several years. Jeff Saturday? Not sure who gets the blame for that.
Maybe "Maytag repairman" is a bit harsh. Maybe he was writing copious, brilliant reports on pro players that were buried on Thompson's desk. Whatever the cause, Wolf's many years in Pro Personnel was an exercise in futility from the player acquisition standpoint. And give the few acquisitions, his opinions would have been largely untested. I'll leave it to others to identify any practice squad "gems" that did not come to the Packers as rookies out of the college scouting process.
Despite the Pro Personnel vacuum of proven results, and limited mature involvement in college scouting, there is certainly room for encouragement. You'd have to think as Director of Player Personnel last season, he had a meaningful hand in managing the college scouting if not doing close evaluation of particular players. It looks like it will pan out as pretty good draft. Compare it to the poor drafts of 2011 and 2012, that the team is still paying for.
As to learning the ways and means of cap management, the resume suggests there would not have been any Wolf immersion in the process until last season. While Russ Bell may be the man behind the curtain, crunching the numbers and negotiating contract details, Thompson must be driving the cap management approach out of his draft-and-develop philosophy and have thorough understanding of cap implications in a multi-year planning process. He has to sign off on those contracts after all. Wolf has likely been getting a foot (or two) into the ways and means of cap management beginning last year.
It's very clear now that Wolf is Thompson's heir apparent, groomed for over a decade in the "Packer way" as defined by Murphy/Thompson. The time going forward is less clear. Wolf is awfully young and Thompson has given no hint of giving it up. It could still be several years. The promotion, as with the coaches in the past, could be just a way of giving him more money as the grooming process proceeds to blunt the any temptation on his part to jump to another team.
A good 2016 draft should solidity his future role, and assuage concerns about the vacuum of accomplishments.
The one thing I hope no one is thinking goes a Hillary Clinton comparison. Many of her supporters weigh heavily who might be whispering in her ear. That is an extremely bad way of thinking about it.
