Kwesi

Adofo-Mensah

Adofo-Mensah spent four seasons as the Vikings’ general manager, most notably helping build a Vikings team that went 14-3 in 2024 with Sam Darnold at quarterback. However, the team’s struggles with 2024 first-rounder J.J. McCarthy starting last season while Darnold won a Super Bowl in Seattle likely contributed to the end of his tenure in Minnesota. Adofo-Mensah spent 2013-2019 with the 49ers in the football research and development department. 49ers general manager John Lynch announced that Adofo-Mensah will now return to the spot his football executive career began as a personnel executive.

The Vikings signed Adofo-Mensah to a multi-year extension last offseason and sent him to the Senior Bowl earlier this week. The move comes as a major surprise, but per The Athletic’s Alec Lewis, there “had been a lot, a lot, a lot of noise in recent weeks.” Adofo-Mensah was hired as the Vikings’ general manager in 2022 and oversaw the team’s last four free agent and draft classes. His extension came after he helped build the Vikings into a 14-3 team that unexpectedly rode the arm of Sam Darnold to the postseason, but the decision to let Darnold walk in the offseason coupled with the struggles of second-year pick J.J. McCarthy are likely one of a handful of decisions made my Adofo-Mensah that ultimately led to his dismissal. With their GM spot now vacant, the Vikings have even more to figure out heading into an offseason that was already going to be headlined by a quarterback controversy.

Adofo-Mensah was first hired as the Vikings’ general manager in 2022 after spending two seasons with the Browns. The 43-year-old GM has helped guide the team to a 34-17 record since his arrival, and signed Sam Darnold to a one-year deal last offseason which wound up paying big dividends for a team that went on to post a 14-3 record. Outside of a down 2023 campaign in which the Vikings lost Kirk Cousins eight games into the season, the Vikings have had the look of a perennial contender in the NFC. Securing Adofo-Mensah for the long term should go a long way in locking them in for more successful runs if quarterback J.J. McCarthy proves to be worth the No. 10 overall pick the Vikes used on him last season.

Adofo-Mensah hasn’t followed a traditional path to becoming a general manager. He has an MBA from Stanford and began his career as a Wall Street trader, before joining the 49ers in an analytics role in 2013. When Browns GM Andrew Berry spoke to The Athletic about the then 39-year-old for their 40 under 40 list, he described him as super, super bright but also emphasized Adofo-Mensah’s ability to communicate his insights and generate organizational buy in. Adofo-Mensah represents a significant shift in the Vikings’ approach going forward, and he may be able to achieve a philosophical change without creating internal turmoil. His hiring likely signals that Minnesota’s next head coach will be analytically inclined and will almost certainly be more passing-oriented than departing head coach Mike Zimmer.

Adofo-Mensah is reportedly the lone remaining candidate in the Vikings GM search after Ryan Poles took the Chicago Bears job, and the deal could be announced as soon as tonight. Adofo-Mensah worked with the 49ers before coming to Cleveland and he is quickly getting tagged together with 49ers DC DeMeco Ryans on the rumor mill.

The Vikings also requested interviews with Browns executive Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Patriots player personnel consultant Eliot Wolf. All three have pending requests from other organizations as well. The Vikings moved on from Rick Spielman after their 2021 season ended. Spielman had been with the franchise for 16 years but the team had stagnated in recent seasons. Once management decides on a GM, they will move forward in their search for a new head coach.

Adofo-Mensah was previously the Director of Football Operations research in San Francisco, while Cook is an ex-Miami Hurricane and baseball prospect who came up through scouting with the Packers and is regarded as the right-hand man to Browns GM Andrew Berry. The public portion of the Bears GM search pool is now at three names as these two join Morocco Brown.

A Princeton alumnus who received his masters degree from Stanford, it’s unsurprising Adofo-Mensah landed under GM Andrew Berry and the rest of Cleveland’s Ivy League-laden front office. Adofo-Mensah previously worked as the Director of Football Research in San Francisco but will essentially take on duties as the Browns’ assistant GM. It remains unclear what title former Colts GM Ryan Grigson, hired prior to April’s draft, will have in the interim.