EAGAN, Minn. — The Minnesota Vikings fired normal supervisor Kwesi Adofo-Mensah on Friday, a stunning flip after an organization-wide failure to make the playoffs this season.
Homeowners Zygi and Mark Wilf tapped Rob Brzezinski, their longtime government vice chairman of soccer operations, to steer the entrance workplace via the 2026 draft.
Talking to reporters Friday, Mark Wilf wouldn’t rule out Brzezinski as a candidate for the everlasting normal supervisor job however pledged a “thorough” postdraft search. Wilf mentioned he’ll “lean towards” a conventional association that will give the following normal supervisor personnel decision-making energy with “extraordinarily heavy enter” from coach Kevin O’Connell.
Adofo-Mensah, employed in 2022 as the primary NFL normal supervisor who rose primarily via an analytics-based background, declined to remark.
Wilf declined to put out the explanations for the firing, together with the extent to which it was prompted by a sequence of 2025 offseason choices that led quarterback Sam Darnold to signal with the Seattle Seahawks and pushed 2024 first-round draft choose J.J. McCarthy onto the sector earlier than he was prepared.
“It is not essentially a good factor to speak about anyone determination, and that is the way in which we method it,” Wilf mentioned. “It is a physique of labor; it is a cumulative set of choices. It is 4 years of the place we have been. We as possession, and I do know our followers, really feel it, and our whole group feels it. We have to get to a greater place. That is strictly an possession and organizational determination that we really feel that is one of the best path going ahead. It is not about one participant, one determination, one draft choose. It is about organizationally what we will do one of the best for our group and our followers.”
The timing was uncommon, as Adofo-Mensah had given a postseason information convention Jan. 13 and had spent this week in Cell, Alabama, scouting Senior Bowl practices. He’s seven months faraway from signing what the Vikings referred to as a multiyear contract extension.
Requested Friday in regards to the timing, Wilf mentioned the staff’s possession group needed to keep away from a “knee-jerk” response.
“A very powerful factor was getting this determination proper,” he mentioned. “And like I mentioned, we wish to be methodical about all this, and we had our season-ending conferences and actually took a deep-dive look and never simply anyone factor however over the previous few years. And so we needed to verify we received the choice proper. We talked to all of the stakeholders, all of the individuals concerned in our soccer operations, and we actually got here to this determination in a methodical approach, and that is the way in which we went about it. That is about our long-term success. We have now a powerful foundation and basis right here on this group, and we need to be certain what positions us going ahead to maximise our skill to try and compete.”
All through the season, there was discuss an underlying “pressure” within the Vikings’ constructing in league circles, sources advised ESPN’s Adam Schefter. One league supply advised Schefter it had been “ugly” in Minnesota.
Wilf mentioned the choice was “100% possession.” Requested whether or not anybody outdoors possession had urged him to fireplace Adofo-Mensah, he mentioned: “Nobody was suggesting, ‘Kwesi this’ or ‘Kwesi that.'”
Wilf added: “We’re in contact with everybody within the constructing, sensing the dynamic, how individuals work collectively. I believe, once more, it is a good collaborative scenario. Individuals get alongside right here. All the pieces was good. It is strictly an expert determination on the place we expect the dynamic was greatest going ahead. So sure, we received enter from all people [on the 2025 season], however no one mentioned, ‘Hey, you have to fireplace. You have to fireplace.’ I imply, it was about us as possession. We mentioned we’re not glad. We should be higher as a company, and that is the path now we have to go.”
Minnesota had three profitable seasons in Adofo-Mensah’s four-year tenure, and its .632 profitable share over that interval is tied for the fifth greatest within the NFL. However the Vikings are 0-2 within the postseason, and Adofo-Mensah’s drafts have been among the many league’s least productive. The staff’s try to draft McCarthy with out taking a step again competitively failed this season regardless of a league-high $350 million money dedication to its 2025 roster.
The Vikings have acquired solely 172 begins from gamers drafted between 2022 and 2025, the second fewest within the league. They’re one in every of 11 NFL groups that have not drafted a Professional Bowl participant over that interval.
Employed in January 2022, Adofo-Mensah was solely the second normal supervisor of the Wilfs’ 20-year tenure as homeowners. He changed Rick Spielman, who had joined the group as vice chairman of participant personnel in 2006 and was promoted to normal supervisor in 2012.
The Vikings charged Adofo-Mensah with overhauling the staff’s tradition, which the Wilfs believed had grown too sterile and tense beneath Spielman, and altering how choices had been made. A basketball participant in his youth and whereas an undergraduate at Princeton, Adofo-Mensah by no means performed soccer nor had he coached it. He was the NFL’s first normal supervisor with a background primarily in analytics.
A former commodities dealer, Adofo-Mensah took an entry-level job as an analytics staffer with the San Francisco 49ers in 2013. He spent seven seasons with the 49ers, rising to the position of director of soccer analysis and improvement, earlier than the Cleveland Browns employed him as vice chairman of soccer operations in 2020.
