Minnesota Vikings

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.

The Vikings have their new General Manager.

Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley has agreed to terms with the Vikings to become their new GM, according to Tom Pelissero.

Teasley has spent the last 14 years with the Seahawks. Before becoming their assistant GM he hwas director of pro personnel, and before that he was assistant director of pro personnel for a year and a pro personnel scout for three years. He started in Seattle as a scouting intern.

Teasley was a running back at Central Washington who graduated in 2007.

The Vikings fired their former GM, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, in January. Vikings executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski had been handling the GM job on an interim basis since then.

The recent amendment to the Brian Flores civil complaint adds new allegations regarding a “culture of retaliation,” based on his decision to assert his legal rights in court. In reviewing the document, something stood out.

In paragraph 235 of the third amended complaint, Flores alleges that the Dolphins failed to make contractually-required severance payments. In paragraph 236, Flores claims that the Dolphins also have tried to recover money already paid to Flores.

“To make matters worse, after this lawsuit was filed, the Dolphins filed a letter with Commissioner Goodell seeking an arbitration over claims that Mr. Flores should be required to return hundreds of thousands of dollars of earned income,” Flores alleges. “The only reason that the Dolphins filed this request is because Mr. Flores filed this suit and opposed the team’s discriminatory conduct.”

For now, there are no details about the alleged effort to recover from Flores money he had already been paid. (Most notably, what did Flores supposedly do that justifies seeking “hundreds of thousands of dollars of earned income”?) Those facts undoubtedly will emerge as the case proceeds.

The recent decision of the Supreme Court to not accept the NFL’s appeal on the issue of arbitration confirms that the case will proceed in court. Barring a settlement (and this could be a good time for the league to start making offers to Flores in an effort to keep all sorts of potentially unflattering facts from coming to light) much will be learned about all aspects of Flores’s claims against the NFL, the Dolphins, and multiple other teams.

The Vikings are having a true competition at the quarterback. It’s not shaping up to be much of a competition.

Based on this week’s OTA session that was open to the media, newcomer Kyler Murray is well ahead of incumbent starter J.J. McCarthy.

Here’s the key quote from Kevin Seifert of ESPN: “Overall, the afternoon was a reminder that McCarthy could continue along the upward trajectory he established at the end of last season -- and still fall well short of matching Murray’s experience, arm talent and potential to make big plays in the passing game.”

Pro football is the ultimate meritocracy. The Vikings lucked into Murray, the first overall pick in 2019. Cut by the Cardinals with more than $30 million in guaranteed money for 2026, the Vikings were able to get Murray — who grew up a Vikings fan — for the league minimum of $1.3 million.

McCarthy has had a fair shake. He has missed too much time due to injury, and availability is absolutely a skill. Also, McCarthy has had issues with accuracy and a fastball-heavy arsenal that keeps the Vikings from using layered passes to fuel the intermediate passing game.

If McCarthy had done well enough in 2025, the Vikings wouldn’t have been looking for another viable starter in 2026. Now, the best player will play.

So far, Murray is on track to be the better of the two. Which will help the Vikings achieve a better outcome than they experienced in McCarthy’s first year as the unquestioned starter.

The 49ers ended up with not one but two international games in 2026 — one in Australia and one in Mexico. Even though the trip to Melbourne will be much longer than the trip to Mexico City, the Mexico trip will likely keep them away from home even longer than the season-opener down under.

“We haven’t finalized it yet, but we’d love to stay here and go there,” Shanahan said of the travel plans for the Week 11 game against the Vikings in Mexico City. “It’s a shorter flight, but that’s not really the issue. The main thing with Mexico City is it’s 2,000 [feet] higher than Denver. And so, we like to get adjusted to that altitude. So, we’ll probably go to Colorado Springs again like we did last time to get ready for that altitude and then probably go to Mexico City the night before.”

The 49ers play their Week 10 game at Dallas. Shanahan was asked whether the team would go straight to Colorado from Texas.

“We haven’t decided that yet, but most likely,” Shanahan said. “We’ll probably end up, the Mexico City trip will probably be a longer one than the Australia one, just because of that.”

The two international trips impose a significant burden on the 49ers. And it potentially creates a competitive disadvantage. Those issues, however, have taken a back seat to the league’s efforts to globalize the game.

The NFL wants to secure the ability to play 16 international games per year, with the idea of having every team make one international trip per season. That would be the fairest way to handle it. If every team has to leave the country once, the disadvantage levels out.

For now, with a maximum of 10 international games, it would be far more fair for no team to be expected to travel to another country for a game more than once per year. In the ultra-difficult NFC West, having the 49ers make two separate trips to play in another country won’t make it an easier to successfully compete with the Seahawks and the Rams.

The Vikings completed a second round of General Manager interviews on Thursday, Alec Lewis of TheAthletic.com reports.

It is unclear whether the Vikings will need more due diligence before a decision, but the expectation has been that they would make a hire by early June.

The Vikings reportedly had a second round of interviews with their executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski, Broncos assistant GM Reed Burckhardt, Bills assistant GM Terrance Gray, Rams assistant GM John McKay and Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley. Brzezinski has been doing the job in Minnesota on an interim basis since they fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

49ers assistant GM RJ Gillen, Titans assistant GM Dave Ziegler and Lions Assistant GM Ray Agnew were other candidates in the first round and Chargers assistant GM Chad Alexander declined an interview request.

The Vikings fired Adofo-Mensah after four seasons on Jan. 30.

The Vikings have a quarterback competition, between the player who was presumed to be the quarterback of the future and a newcomer who is looking to turn the clock back to 2020.

Both guys want to play. Unless coach Kevin O’Connell plans to implement a two-quarterback offense, only one will.

On Wednesday, incumbent starter J.J. McCarthy downplayed (unconvincingly) the inherently awkward nature of the situation. Kyler Murray separately addressed his relationship with McCarthy.

“It’s been great,” Murray told reporters. “It’s been great. Obviously, I know he’s a younger guy, so any way I can help him, obviously, I feel like, you know, I’ve played seven years now going on eight.

“So I’m considered a veteran, even though I don’t see myself as that. Give him any knowledge that he needs. Again, you know, we’re both competitors, and I know we both want what’s best for the team.”

Has McCarthy been receptive to Murray’s input?

“Of course, of course,” Murray said. “Yeah, he’s overly acceptive, you know, and he’s always communicating, asking questions, stuff like that, so it’s been good.”

No matter how good it is, it’s not going to end well for one of them. Based on Murray’s history and accomplishments, he’s the obvious favorite to win the competition. Unless, that is, his mere presence prompts McCarthy to unlock a higher level of performance.

That’s the goal for the Vikings. For only $1.3 million, they have been able to add a veteran who will either push McCarthy to get better or shove him aside. And it all comes down to what happens on the practice field (for now) and eventually what the eventual starter does during the games that count.

J.J. McCarthy went into the 2025 offseason as the Vikings’ unquestioned starter. He went into this offseason competing with Kyler Murray for the starting job.

Murray is the favorite to win the job.

McCarthy, a first-round pick in 2024, made his first public comments since the Vikings signed Murray on March 12.

“It’s just like two guys in a classroom,” McCarthy said Wednesday, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “He sits on one side, I sit on the other side, and it’s the coach’s responsibility to teach us and coach us.”

McCarthy insists there is no “awkwardness” between the quarterbacks.

“Awkwardness? It’s just like the same feeling when you’re in high school, and there’s another person on the other side of the room,” McCarthy said. “That’s just kind of how it is. I wouldn’t say there’s any awkwardness.”

Coach Kevin O’Connell has not named a starter, giving McCarthy a chance to compete with Murray. The team’s top two quarterbacks took turns making throws to the first-team wide receivers.

McCarthy, 23, went 6-4 as the Vikings’ starter last season, throwing for 1,631 yards with 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. It prompted the Vikings to sign Murray to a one-year, $1.3 million contract after the Cardinals released him.

McCarthy said he remains focused on what he can control.

“The organization made a decision that they feel like is going to improve the depth and the quality of the room, and they feel like they made that decision,” McCarthy said. “All I’m thinking about is continuing the upward trajectory that I set for myself last season, that last quarter of the season and continuing to be the best version of me every single day.”

Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to not accept the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case means that all of his claims will be decided in court, not in arbitration.

And Flores recently added some new factual allegations to the various legal theories raised in his four-year-old litigation against the league and various teams.

In the third amendment to his initial civil complaint, Flores has added specific allegations of retaliation against the NFL.

The 483-paragraph, 106-page document includes at paragraphs 298 through 312 allegations that the NFL has retaliated against Flores since the filing of his initial lawsuit.

“Despite it being widely understood by the public and sports media that Mr. Flores should be considered one of the elite Head Coach candidates, Mr. Flores has not been offered a Head Coach job since starting this lawsuit,” the new complaint alleges at paragraph 311.

From paragraph 312 of the new complaint: “The NFL teams’ failure to hire Mr. Flores is consistent with an NFL Head Coach hiring process that is [sic] has for decades treated Black candidates disparately to white candidates and led to significantly disparate impact. It is also consistent with a culture of retaliation in which NFL teams close ranks against those who raise complaints of discrimination.”

The new factual allegations did not result in an additional cause of action; the existing lawsuit already includes multiple specific claims for retaliation.

As to the concept of retaliation based on the failure of teams to hire Flores as its head coach, the current complaint lists only one team — the Texans. In 2022, Houston made Flores one of three finalists for the job (along with Josh McCown and Jonathan Gannon) before hiring Lovie Smith instead. Flores claims that the decision to not hire him was motivated by the filing of his lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams.

Although no specific other teams have been accused of failing to hire Flores in retaliation for filing and pursuing his lawsuit, the discovery process could lead to evidence that would support a finding that Flores was not given proper consideration by one or more teams with vacancies during the 2023, 2024, 2025, and/or 2026 hiring cycles.

The contention that the NFL maintains a “culture of retaliation” shows that Flores suspects his failure to get more interviews and/or any offers resulted from retaliation. Time will tell whether other specific teams are added to the case as defendants.

Flores’s current claims target the Dolphins, Texans, Broncos, and Giants. (His co-plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, have sued the Cardinals and Titans, respectively.)

Obviously, Flores won’t be able to force any team to hire him. His aggressive legal arguments won’t make that any easier. Throughout the litigation, however, he has chosen doing what he believes is right over what would be expedient for his career.

And so he’ll continue to serve as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, while waiting for a head-coaching opportunity that may never materialize. In the end, the NFL and/or specific teams could be on the wrong end of a verdict that requires them to pay Flores as if he has been a head coach since 2022.

Even if Flores never becomes a head coach again.