Nearly four weeks after ending the 2025 season on a five-game winning streak, the Vikings have made a major change to the football operation.
G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has been fired.
The timing is unusual, to say the least. It implies that ownership engaged in a careful review and deliberation of the missteps that kept a Super Bowl-ready team from making the playoffs, headlined by the ill-fated handling of the quarterback position for 2025.
From our examination of the coming coaching carousel, posted on December 31: “Coach Kevin O’Connell is the right leader for the team. How much leading are they letting him do? Someone bungled the quarterback decision(s) for 2025. We’ve got a feeling that someone wasn’t O’Connell. If that sense is right, O’Connell needs to have more sway in 2026. While that doesn’t necessarily require G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to be replaced (then again, his draft record has not been flawless), it does require O’Connell to have a larger voice in personnel matters.”
Today’s move suggests that O’Connell will have more power in 2026, especially as it relates to the structure of the quarterback depth chart.
It also suggests that, a year ago, O’Connell didn’t want to let Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones leave in free agency. And that O’Connell perhaps didn’t want to say “no thank you” to Aaron Rodgers. J.J. McCarthy, who missed all of his rookie year with a knee injury, clearly was not ready. The Vikings absolutely needed a veteran backup plan better than signing Carson Wentz less than two weeks before the first game of the regular season.
Arguably, the Vikings should have had a veteran starter, with McCarthy sitting for a year.
Last March, while everyone waited to see what the Vikings would do at quarterback, some who were dealing with the Vikings expressed confusion as to who is calling the shots. This March, that likely won’t be an issue.
Adofo-Mensah was hired four years ago, in the same cycle that saw the purging of former coach Mike Zimmer and former G.M. Rick Spielman and the hiring of O’Connell. Adofo-Mensah received a contract extension after the 2024 season, as did O’Connell.
The Vikings also have announced that executive V.P. of football operations Rob Brzezinski will lead the front office through the draft. The search for a new General Manager will begin thereafter.
The broader question is whether O’Connell will emerge with control over the roster and/or the draft. Could he become, essentially, a Bill Belichick-type coach and de facto G.M., with a V.P. of player personnel or G.M. “light” to assist him?
Regardless, with Darnold getting ready for the Super Bowl and the Vikings nearly a month into the aftermath of another season of unfulfilled expectations, ownership decided that something had to change. And that something was the General Manager.
