A few days ago, the Buffalo Bills’ power struggle played out among owner Terry Pegula, GM Brandon Beane, and head coach Sean McDermott. Ultimately, they fired McDermott, and I remember thinking how shocking it was that an organization that had built such a reputation for success could be susceptible to that kind of political posturing and infighting.
Compared to that, Minnesota felt like it had a unified front, even with a few rumors swirling about growing behind-the-scenes tension after falling short of expectations this season.
Well, go ahead and insert a cliché about glass houses and stone throwing here.
On Friday, the Minnesota Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, a decision that has left many perplexed. It’s not that Adofo-Mensah was beloved by this fanbase. His legacy of draft misses and the specter of Lewis Cine looming over his shoulder continued to cast a negative light on everything he did for large swaths of the Vikings faithful.
Still, the timing of this move raises many questions. What changed between now and the end of the season? Why send him and his guys down to the Senior Bowl if he was going to get fired halfway through the week?
That provides some insight into the Wilfs’ motivation. Firing Adofo-Mensah isn’t just about his lackluster drafting résumé. It isn’t just that their free agency strategy has them in a bit of a cap crunch (even if some contract jiu jitsu balances things out pretty quickly). It also isn’t just about the decision to let Sam Darnold out of the building in favor of J.J. McCarthy, with Darnold winning an NFC Championship and McCarthy turning into a Twitter punchline.
It’s clearly all of those things, and the political power struggle that emerged inside that pressure cooker, that resulted in the Wilfs feeling like they had no other option.
There’s so much to consider all at once. What does this mean for this offseason and Minnesota’s approach to free agency and the draft? Who really holds the final say with personnel decisions? Is this a consolidation of authority for Kevin O’Connell? Or is it a sign that his seat could be even hotter heading into next season under a new GM that may have him on a short leash?
However, I’m most fascinated by how this plays out for McCarthy, the child of this divorce.
The cliché is that every kid asks themselves if it’s their fault when their parents get divorced. Well, if McCarthy asks himself that question today, he might actually be correct. It’s probably too simplistic to think that this firing was entirely due to the McCarthy/Darnold dynamic. Still, in the alternate timeline where McCarthy stays healthy, plays better, or both, I highly doubt Adofo-Mensah gets fired. That is, unless the tension behind the scenes was far worse than we suspect as of now.
It’s impossible to overlook the Sam Darnold narrative in this whole thing, and it’s a bit odd that Kwesi may go down as the scapegoat for that decision. Kevin O’Connell gushed about McCarthy. The front office did nothing but sing his praises before his 2024 injury and throughout his rehab heading into 2025. Even as they flirted with other quarterback options (Darnold, Daniel Jones, Aaron Rodgers, etc.), the perception was never that the coaching staff was being forced into this McCarthy move by an analytics-driven GM obsessed with building around a rookie quarterback contract. But that may be exactly how the narrative gets spun in the coming days.
The rumors and speculation regarding McCarthy’s future and the Vikings possibly looking elsewhere for an established quarterback were already running rampant. Whether you buy the Joe Burrow trade rumors or not, the scuttlebutt is out there and has not been definitively squashed by any of the insiders on the Minnesota beat. Kirk Cousins, Kyler Murray, Mac Jones — all guys who have been tied to Minnesota this offseason. It’s clear that there are people in the Vikings organization who are far from content with McCarthy as the incumbent starter going into next season, and that was before heads started rolling.
Seldom does drafting a quarterback in the first round result in anything other than rousing success or else everyone getting fired. Not many coaches or GMs get two bites at the apple. Adofo-Mensah certainly didn’t, and it’ll be interesting to see if O’Connell does. O’Connell needs to succeed at the quarterback position as soon as possible, and his job security will be even better if that quarterback is McCarthy. But O’Connell may not have the luxury of playing things out with McCarthy any longer.
If you’re looking for even more doom and gloom, take a gander at interim GM Rob Brzezinski’s draft record from the one year he was at all involved with personnel decisions. The brain trust of Rob Brzezinski, eventual GM Rick Spielman, and head coach Leslie Frazier was supposedly given equal authority to execute the 2011 draft. Which famously worked out great, right?