{"id":896050,"date":"2026-05-20T03:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/896050\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:51:20","slug":"as-vikings-search-for-next-gm-what-do-they-value-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/896050\/","title":{"rendered":"As Vikings search for next GM, what do they value most?"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The Minnesota Vikings<\/a> fired their last general manager, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, on Jan. 30. The timeline was unusual after the hiring cycle for general manager openings had come and gone.<\/p>\n

Longtime football administration executive Rob Brzezinski has served as interim general manager since. He is a candidate for the full opening. Would Minnesota consider someone whose primary experience is not in talent evaluation?<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere’s some science to it,\u201d team owner Mark Wilf told Yahoo Sports at the NFL\u2019s May owners meetings on Tuesday. \u201cThere’s of course some art. You have to see the person, know the person, get to know them and understand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a leadership position and someone needs to lead our football organization and that’s kind of how we’re viewing it. Of course, football expertise, football personnel, our entire staff and team and getting people to work together. All of it plays into a mix. I can’t give you any scientific formula, but I’m confident as we spend more time with these candidates and get to know everybody better, it’ll become clear to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CHICAGO,CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – SEPTEMBER 8: Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell and Minnesota Vikings owner Mark Wilf talk prior to to an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears<\/a> at Solider Field on September 8, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Todd Rosenberg\/Getty Images) (Todd Rosenberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Some teams in recent years have bifurcated leadership into a head business\/football administration role and a head talent evaluation role. Wilf does not plan to operate that way, he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think we still ultimately need to have a leader who represents ownership who can kind of bring the building together,\u201d Wilf said. \u201cIt’s not just the [scouts and executives], it’s coaches, it’s even on the business side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of the candidates whom Minnesota has interviewed were in Orlando for the league\u2019s talent accelerator program. San Francisco 49ers assistant general manager RJ Gillen, Bills assistant GM Terrance Gray, Rams assistant GM John McKay and Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley were all in Orlando at the same time as Wilf and Vikings leadership.<\/p>\n

Did that advance their candidacy?<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m meeting people here in general because I think this accelerator program does great work,\u201d Wilf said. \u201cSome of them are candidates for our GM search and I’ll have informal conversations with them. But of course, the meat of the conversations are in the interviews and spending time in the facility and getting to know them really better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The Minnesota Vikings fired their last general manager, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, on Jan. 30. The timeline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[391,7,120496,9864,20942,233,259,2529,6,103805,2503,234],"class_list":["post-896050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-vikings","tag-chicago-bears","tag-football","tag-football-organization","tag-kwesi-adofo-mensah","tag-mark-wilf","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl","tag-rob-brzezinski","tag-todd-rosenberg","tag-vikings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116604874540053113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}