The Minnesota Vikings have fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah after four seasons with the club, NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported Friday.
Minnesota announced the news shortly after with an official statement.
"Following our annual end-of-season organizational meetings over the last several weeks and after careful consideration, we have decided it is in the best interest of the team to move forward with new leadership of our football operations," owners Mark and Zygi Wilf said in the statement. "These decisions are never easy. We are grateful for Kwesi's contributions and commitment to the organization over the past four years and wish him and his family the best in the future."
Executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski will lead the team's operations through the 2026 draft, after which the Vikings will conduct their general manager search, according to the Wilfs.
Minnesota's decision to part with Adofo-Mensah comes as somewhat of a shock, considering the Vikings agreed to an extension with the GM in May of 2025, a move that paired Adofo-Mensah with coach Kevin O'Connell for the foreseeable future.
That pairing collapsed with Friday's decision, one that comes after a 9-8 season that fell far short of expectations in quarterback J.J. McCarthy's first campaign as a starter.
Speaking with reporters hours after Friday's announcement of Adofo-Mensah's dismissal, Mark Wilf explained the decision was "not about any one decision or move" but one made looking at the situation "cumulatively."
"This is a critical offseason. Ultimately, we felt the change was necessary in football operations and did not feel comfortable going forward into this offseason with the current leadership," Wilf said. "It's not about any one decision or move. We looked at the situation cumulatively. We just didn't feel confident going through the entirety of the offseason, an additional draft, with this structure. We have an urgency to create a winning football team and establish sustainable success for our fans. At the same time we balance that urgency with all decisions thoroughly and methodically."
However, one cannot view Adofo-Mensah's dismissal without considering McCarthy's role in the matter. As GM of the Vikings, Adofo-Mensah made the fateful decision to select McCarthy with the 10th-overall pick in 2024, a move that made sense following Kirk Cousins' departure for Atlanta but hasn't aged perfectly since then.
McCarthy's encouraging preseason debut fueled wishful optimism that motivated the Vikings to move on from Sam Darnold after he completed a career-best year in 2024, allowing Darnold to leave for a three-year, $100.5 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks and clearing a path for McCarthy to claim his place as the Vikings' franchise quarterback. The results were underwhelming; McCarthy struggled to stay on the field due to injuries and also appeared overwhelmed by the responsibilities of an NFL starter before finishing the 2025 season by producing some promising performances.
Darnold, meanwhile, compiled another stellar season that has seen the Seahawks reach Super Bowl LX, making Minnesota's decision to let him walk look worse.
Adofo-Mensah was asked about the decision in his end-of-season meeting with media members and delivered a meandering, seemingly regretful response.
"You're trying to make sure that you don't lock yourselves into what you did and thinking that it's always right, so there's those nights where you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself," Adofo-Mensah said. "But I always go back to the process and what we thought at the time. It's easier to kind of go and be revisionist and results-based, but going to really think through what we had at the time, I still understand why we did what we did. The results maybe didn't play out the way would have wanted them to, but ultimately I think that at the end of the day, we could have executed better in certain places. I'm not going to say individually, in terms of a particular player, but just executed better knowing what the room was playstyle-wise, experience-wise, and just kind of really put together a better combination of people, a collective in that group. That's kind of the thing I focused on the most.
"And also, ultimately, understanding how we play and win football games. ... We've won a high clip of games since we've been here when we've gotten a certain level of play, a certain style of explosive plays. These are things we've talked about, but a lot of times, points aren't made until something is removed. And then you kind of see the complex system and how you remove that one variable and how that one variable affects other things, and really seeing how when you weren't that explosive, how teams played us. How they got to box a different fight, and when they got to box a different fight, how that impacted our defense and their ability to create turnovers and win games the way we felt we could win. That was really a great learning experience that tied into the quarterback discussion and those are the things we'll carry with us going forward."
Embedded in that lengthy response was an admission of failure in how Adofo-Mensah constructed the quarterback room. Minnesota added veteran Carson Wentz as a backup and watched him largely struggle before eventually attempting to play through injury that ended his season. After Wentz, all that was left was local University of Minnesota product Max Brosmer, who was clearly overwhelmed by the speed of the game during his appearances.
This combination of factors under center -- a can of worms first opened by McCarthy's early-season injury and worsened by his on-field struggles upon returning -- contributed directly to Minnesota's disappointing 9-8 finish, a result that can largely be positively credited to the successes of defensive coordinator Brian Flores' unit. It certainly wasn't attributable to the quarterback position, save for McCarthy's December stretch of positive play, and is further proven in superstar receiver Justin Jefferson's frustrating, career-worst 2025 season.
There's also the matter of the draft. Over four attempts, Adofo-Mensah has failed to retain many of his picks. The first six picks made by Adofo-Mensah's front office in his first draft (2022) are no longer with the team, and only Day Three selections Jalen Nailor and Ty Chandler remain on the roster from that class. He found more success in following years with the likes of Jordan Addison and Dallas Turner, but third-round pick Mekhi Blackmon spent 2025 in Indianapolis, and 2025 third-rounder Tai Felton -- selected as a hopeful reinforcement to the receiving corps -- caught just three passes in his rookie season while spending most of his time on special teams.
In total, Adofo-Mensah had much more success in free agency than the draft, a positive result in the short term but a destructive reality for long-term roster construction. His biggest question, McCarthy, remains unanswered and continues to age poorly while Darnold enjoys success in Seattle. The timing of his firing -- just nine days before Darnold starts in Super Bowl LX -- cannot be seen as merely a coincidence.
"This decision was 100 percent an ownership decision," Wilf said Friday. "This is about our organization and how we set up for success going forward. We have all the confidence in the world in coach O'Connell. He's done an excellent job as our head coach, but we have to have the entire organization -- he included -- everyone is accountable here. So, we need to move forward and support the team we have now and make sure we compete, and this is the way we came about the decision. But make no mistake, this was strictly an ownership and organizational decision."
Adofo-Mensah departs with a 43-25 record, having put together two playoff rosters for the Vikings -- though both lost in the Wild Card Round.
With most front office jobs already filled during the 2026 hiring cycle and a temporary organizational structure in place through the draft, Minnesota will have to play catch-up in order to find Adofo-Mensah's replacement.
