Minnesota Vikings

The Pro Football Writers of America announced Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores as the 2026 George Halas Award winner.

Flores, the 58th Halas Award winner, is the first member of the Vikings franchise to receive the honor from the PFWA.

Other 2026 finalists for the Halas Award were Lions edge Aidan Hutchinson and 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey.

The Halas Award is given to an NFL player, coach or staff member who overcomes the most adversity to succeed. The award is named for Halas, a charter member (1963) of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, who was associated with the Chicago Bears and NFL from their inception in 1920 until his death in 1983 as an owner, manager, player and promoter. Halas won 324 games and six NFL titles in 40 seasons as a coach.

The Halas Award is one of the two oldest awards presented by the PFWA, along with the Bill Nunn Jr. Award, presented to a reporter who has made a long and distinguished contribution to pro football through coverage. Both awards were first given in 1969.

After three seasons as the head coach of the Dolphins, Flores was fired after the 2021 season. He filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and three teams, alleging racial discrimination. In the midst of the lawsuit, he was hired by Pittsburgh as a senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach in 2022. Flores has spent the last three seasons (2023-25) as Minnesota defensive coordinator. In February 2026, a U.S. District Court ruled that Flores’ lawsuit can be tried in open court, rather than arbitration overseen by the NFL. On May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by the NFL by declining to review the lower court’s decision in the matter.

During the 2025 season, the Vikings defense ranked third in the NFL in total yards (282.6 yards per game).

J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray are competing to be the Vikings’ starting quarterback, and comments by McCarthy have been interpreted by some as indicating that the two have a strained relationship. Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell doesn’t think that’s the case.

O’Connell told reporters today that he sees nothing but positives in the Vikings’ quarterbacks room, not only between McCarthy and Murray but also with veteran backup Carson Wentz and quarterbacks coach Josh McCown.

“The interpretation of those comments will be what they are. I would just say, in the room, day to day, the dialogue between those guys, the interactions, have been very professional,” O’Connell said. “And more than that it’s been a positive room. I think Carson has a lot to do with that, as the veteran in the room. And I would never discount Josh McCown’s extensive career as a player in those quarterback rooms and how he manages the room and everybody in there. So I didn’t make a lot out of it. I know there was some reaction to it. That’s probably not the first time there’s gonna be a reaction to those guys answering questions about the situation. That’s what the competition is all about. There’s no hiding anything. It’s going to be displayed on the field, and their teammates and coaching staff and the guys in this building have to feel a conviction about the direction we go, and you do that by your daily habits, and just improving.”

O’Connell said McCarthy has done a good job of responding to the Vikings’ decision to bring in Murray to compete with him for the starting job.

“I think he’s handling it really well. He’s been great in the meeting rooms,” O’Connell said. “As a captain and a guy that helps lead our team, he’s been phenomenal.”

By the start of the regular season, one of the quarterbacks is going to be disappointed with the result of the McCarthy-Murray competition. Right now, O’Connell likes what he sees from both.

The Vikings have made their first roster moves since hiring Nolan Teasley as their General Manager.

They announced on Thursday that they have signed wide receivers Michael Briscoe and Trayvon Rudolph. Both players initially signed with the Seahawks after going undrafted this year and Teasley was in the Seattle front office before being hired by the Vikings.

Briscoe caught 43 passes for 779 yards and seven touchdowns at Cal Poly last season. Rudolph had 39 catches for 435 yards and two touchdowns and he also returned a kickoff for a touchdown while at Toledo.

The Vikings waived wide receiver Joaquin Davis in a corresponding move.

49ers General Manager John Lynch announced in February that the team had hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. On Wednesday, the 49ers announced Adofo-Mensah’s title.

He will serve as vice president, personnel and strategy.

The Vikings fired Adofo-Mensah in January after four seasons with the team.

The 49ers also announced nine executives have earned promotions to new roles within the organization.

• Nathan Biehl - Area Scout
• Grant Bordelon - Football Systems and Personnel Operations Specialist
• Ryan Carter - NFS Scout
• Brad Clark - Senior Director, Football Technology & Video Systems
• Casey Filkins - Player Personnel Scout
• Jordan Fox - Pro Scout
• Michael Gonzalez - Head of General Manager Operations
• Austin Moss II - Vice President, Player Development & Team Dynamics
• Jeff Weidemeyer - Senior Manager, Football Administration & Roster Management

The Vikings officially introduced former Seahawks assistant G.M. Nolan Teasley as the new General Manager in Minnesota on Wednesday.

During the press conference, it became clear that Teasley is running the show.

“He’s the General Manager of the organization,” owner Mark Wilf told reporters. “He has final say on the roster, of the 53[-man roster], but in the end, he’s going to lean heavily — and he’ll say it himself — on our head coach [Kevin O’Connell], obviously, and people like [executive V.P. of football operations] Rob Brzezinski in the building that have deep experience and skillsets that are complementary. So I think we have it all put together in a great way. And I’m confident that this is a great move for the organization, a great move for the Minnesota Vikings.”

Wilf added that Teasley and O’Connell will both report directly to ownership, with Brzezinski reporting to Teasley.

“Nolan, the General Manager, reports to ownership as well as the head coach,” Wilf said. “Rob [Brzezinski] is part of the football operations and football organization that’s under Nolan. So again, in the end, that’s the structure. That’s the way it is. If it comes to structure, we’ve got a problem.”

Wilf is right. It’s not about pulling rank. It’s about collaboration. The various parties need to get along. To build consensus. To always remember that it’s about finding the best solution for the organization.

Teasley becomes the leader of the football operation. O’Connell is the leader of the locker room. The more they work together, the better off the Vikings will be.

Larry Fitzgerald Sr., a long-time Minnesota sports reporter and the father of soon-to-be Hall of Fame receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr., has died. He was 71.

Marcus Fitzgerald, the brother of Larry Jr., announced their father’s passing on social media, via Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our father, Larry Fitzgerald Sr.,” Marcus wrote. “A devoted father, husband, grandfather, and a true pioneer in the Minnesota broadcasting community, he spent his life pouring into the people and the city he loved so much.

“He left us peacefully this afternoon, surrounded by his family and the people who loved him most.”

Larry Fitzgerald Sr. was a fixture in the Minnesota sports scene since 1978.

“The Vikings organization is saddened by the passing of Larry Fitzgerald Sr., a distinguished journalist and trusted voice in Minnesota sports for nearly 50 years,” the Vikings said in a statement. “Larry built relationships with players, coaches and staff members for each of the local teams and was recognized across the NFL, covering dozens of Super Bowls and other major events.

“Beyond his reputation in the media, Larry was a dedicated father and a community leader who cared deeply about the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Our hearts are with Larry Jr., Marcus and the entire Fitzgerald family, as well as Larry’s friends and colleagues as they mourn his loss.”

We extend our condolences to Larry Fitzgerald Sr.'s family, friends, and colleagues.

Nolan Teasley officially became the new General Manager of the Vikings on Monday.

Word that the Vikings settled on Teasley came over the weekend and the Vikings announced the move on Monday afternoon. Teasley succeeds Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was fired earlier in the offseason, after spending the last 13 seasons with the Seahawks.

Teasley will work with executive vice president Rob Brzezinski, who did the GM job on an interim basis after the firing, and head coach Kevin O’Connell as the top pieces on the football side of the building.

“He carries himself with humility but can confidently articulate the impressive depth of his football knowledge. We share a belief in the importance of culture, consensus-building, and putting people in positions to become the best versions of themselves,” O’Connell said in a statement. “I look forward to working alongside Nolan and Rob as we continue building on the foundation we’ve established and strive to achieve our goal of bringing a Super Bowl to Vikings fans.”

Teasley was part of two Super Bowl winners while with the Seahawks and the Vikings will be hoping that he makes it three before his time with the club is up.

Now that the Supreme Court has declined to accept the NFL’s last-ditch effort to force all or part of the Brian Flores case into arbitration, the litigation will finally get going.

And the going could get nasty.

By way of background, I have handled many employment cases. From both sides. After working for years at a firm that focused on representing corporate clients that had been sued (no matter how strong or weak a given case may have been), I decided that I was more interested in representing individuals who had cases I believed to be strong.

So I’ve been there, done that. Many times.

Here’s the reality. No company that has been sued for wrongful termination will admit it. The witnesses will have locked into their stories months before it’s time to take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Proving that the party line is essentially a lie requires a relentless pursuit of circumstantial evidence to contradict the predictable denial of discrimination, retaliation, etc. (For example, if the plaintiff was fired for violating a specific workplace rule, it’s useful to show that others violated the same rule, without being fired or even disciplined.)

This means that, in the Flores case, his lawyers will aggressively pursue deposition testimony from a wide range of witnesses from the league office and the various teams that have been sued (so far, the Dolphins, Broncos, Giants, Texans, Cardinals, and Titans). Plenty of the witnesses (starting with the Commissioner and any owners) will not react well to being verbally poked, prodded, and pressed for anything beyond the predictable default position: “we didn’t do anything wrong.” These witnesses will emerge from the deposition process feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.

Flores (along with the other plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton) will deal with the same kind of thing. The lawyers representing the NFL and its teams will look for anything they can find to make them look bad. They’ll dig and dig and dig some more to make the process as uncomfortable as it can be. They’ll throw mud at the wall. They’ll throw mud directly at the plaintiffs. They’ll try to catch them in any potential misstatement, big or small, that could then be characterized at trial as a lie.

In the deposition process, there’s a wide range of latitude when questioning a witness. With no jury present, the lawyers don’t have to worry about being so aggressive (to the point of being openly hostile) that it may alienate the people who will decide the case.

This is what I’d typically say to anyone who was interested in suing a current or former employer: “Think of the worst thing about yourself that you wouldn’t want other people to know. You don’t have to tell me what it is. Just think of what it is. Then, think of what would happen if that thing became public. And then assume that, at some point during this litigation, it will.”

The unofficial playbook for lawyers defending corporate clients against claims of illegal employment practices includes turning the tables on the plaintiff in the hopes of making the plaintiff look as bad as possible when it’s time to present the case to a jury. It gets messy. It gets ugly. And, like the Commissioner and owners who are questioned by Flores’s lawyers, Flores will emerge from his deposition feeling anywhere from frustrated to flat-out pissed off.

That’s how it goes. The discovery process becomes the legal equivalent of a street fight. Which could be bad for the league, the teams, and/or Flores, Wilks, and Horton.

As the snippets of deposition testimony come to light, it will be very good for my current business.

The hiring of Seahawks assistant G.M. Nolan Teasley as the Vikings’ new G.M. will carry a specific benefit for his former team.

Per the league, Teasley qualifies as a diverse candidate under the NFL provision that gives the former team of a newly-hired G.M. or head coach a pair of third-round compensatory draft picks.

The only question is whether Teasley will be Minnesota’s “primary football executive.” That requirement prevented the Bears from receiving the compensatory draft picks when assistant General Manager Ian Cunningham was hired to be the Falcons G.M. The league decided that president of football Matt Ryan is the “primary football executive” in Atlanta.

The Bears appealed the decision to the league, and Bears fans continue to be mystified by the outcome — especially since Ryan has made it clear that Cunningham is a General Manager “in every facet of the word.”

Minnesota has no similar position to Ryan’s job with the Falcons. The only alternative to Teasley would be coach Kevin O’Connell. But there has been no indication that, moving forward, O’Connell will emerge as the top football executive for the Vikings, with full control over the roster and the draft.

The NFL’s full collection of diversity of initiatives have recently come under attack by Florida’s attorney general. The Seahawks getting two extra third-round draft picks undoubtedly will spark a reaction from those who, in the current climate, attack efforts aimed at enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

For any NFL team, the most important relationship happens between the head coach and the G.M. (Except where the coach is the G.M., in title or far more often in power.)

In Minnesota, the biggest question emerging from the hiring of Nolan Teasley as the successor to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is whether Teasley and Kevin O’Connell will operate as a partnership that strengthens, not fractures, during the inevitability of adversity.

When the coach and G.M. are truly in it together, struggles don’t become an occasion to point fingers. When the coach and G.M. don’t have a strong connection, human nature takes over when the going gets tough. One blames the other, subtly or overtly, in the hopes of surviving the purge.

Earlier this month, O’Connell said he’d be as involved in the G.M. search as ownership wanted him to be. As characterized by Kevin Seifert of ESPN, O’Connell was heavily involved.

Seifert reports that ownership “lean[ed] mostly” on O’Connell and Vikings chief operating officer Andrew Miller in the search that landed on Teasley.

Ben Goessling of the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that Teasley and O’Connell “have known each other for years,” and that they built a relationship through O’Connell’s connection to Seahawks G.M. John Schneider.

Via Goessling, that relationship made Teasley “attractive” to the Vikings as they “looked for a partner for the head coach.”

Teasley’s side of the relationship becomes critical, too. Most aspiring General Managers have a personal list of the coaches they’d want to work with if/when they get the top job in a team’s front office.

Remember when Jim Caldwell coached the Lions? He went 11-5, 7-9, 9-7, and 9-7 with a team that had struggled through many bad seasons. It wasn’t enough to keep Bob Quinn from fulfilling his desire to work with Matt Patricia — who generated a record of 13-29-1 before the Lions moved on.

O’Connell, through four years, has proven that he should be at or near the top of anyone’s list. And if Teasley and O’Connell already know each other, that’s a major plus.

Regardless, they’re now partners. They need to be joined at the hip in order to give the Vikings a chance at something more than every-other-year one-and-done playoff appearances.