5 thoughts about the Vikings hiring Nolan Teasley as GM
By Matthew Coller
Multiple reports came on Saturday that the Minnesota Vikings will hire Seattle Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley as their new general manager. Let’s take a closer look at the hire…
1 — Draft, draft, draft
The Vikings didn’t just struggle in the draft during Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s tenure, they had issues finding top-notch starters and depth players alike during the second half of Rick Spielman’s regime as well.
The hope is that Nolan Teasley can turn that trend around quickly.
On the other side of the drafting spectrum is the Seattle Seahawks, where Teasley worked his way up from a scouting intern to AGM. Under GM John Schneider, the Seahawks have been one of the best teams in the NFL in recent years at drafting and they built a championship team largely through the draft. Key picks like Devon Witherspoon, Byron Murphy II, Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, Derick Hall, Gray Zebel, Nick Emmanwori, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Charles Cross and plenty of other depth pieces as well.
That’s very different from the Vikings, who have relied on hitting the lottery with Justin Jefferson and then using free agency and trades to make up the gap left by poor drafting. They hit home runs on FA signings like Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Jonathan Greenard, Aaron Jones and Isaiah Rodgers and acquired TJ Hockenson and Jordan Mason via trade but the cost to find players in free agency and trades is much greater than hitting on them in free agency.
Seattle also did a great job at stockpiling picks. They had 14 top-100 selections between 2022 and 2025. The Vikings only had 8 during that timespan.
The differences between how the Vikings approach player evaluation and drafting behind the scenes might be subtle but there’s some things that stand out pretty clearly from Seattle’s draft history.
They have done a very good job picking freaky athletic players. The list of players with over 85th percentile Relative Athletic Score is very long for Seattle, including Mafe (99th), OT Abraham Lucas (97th), Riq Woolen (97th), Derick Hall (94th), Ken Walker (92nd), Byron Murphy II (92nd), AJ Barner (87th).
Seattle has also leaned on players who have been productive in college. The most notable example is Smith-Njigba, who had 95 receptions in 2021 with Ohio State. Byron Murphy II had a 91.1 PFF grade in his final year in college, Witherspoon allowed a 25.3 QB rating into his coverage and on and on.
That doesn’t mean that Seattle hasn’t missed on picks. They had a run during Schneider’s era where they had some draft picks go wrong but their overall process has seemed to produce quality results for an extended period of time.
How much Teasley can carry over Seattle’s success to Minnesota will like define his era here.
2 — Fresh eyes
The Vikings search list included several folks who had either been in the Vikings organization or worked with Kevin O’Connell in the past but they elected to hire the candidate with no connection to the franchise.
While we cannot argue that the Vikings are any kind of mess or disaster from a front office standpoint, it does appear to be favorable to bring in someone who can provide a new perspective on everything.
The team has perpetually been competitive but they haven’t been able to get over the hump, winning just two playoff games since Brett Favre left.
Going with an outside hire suggests that the Wilfs are interested in fresh ideas as they search for the secret sauce to get them over the top.
The ownership appears to also be giving Teasley the reins to do things his way. While there was some speculation that Rob Brzezinski might have a change of title after doing a good job this offseason as interim GM, Jonathan Jones of CBS is reporting that Brzezinski will remain in the same position as before (executive vice president/football operations).
It might have been beneficial based on some previous head butting to have Brzezinski as the team president who could oversee Teasley but it also makes sense to allow the new GM to bring in his own process when you are looking for change.
3 — GM and head coach
An interesting element of Teasley’s hiring is the relationship with Kevin O’Connell.
Having a GM and head coach on two different timelines creates a dynamic in itself. Normally we see HCs and GMs hired together or the GM will fire a coach and then hire someone else. It’s not often that a GM ends up getting hired after a head coach is well established in his position.
In an ideal world, Teasley would use his scouting background to find the types of players that O’Connell and Brian Flores are looking for but team building is much more complicated than that. It will be vital for Teasley and his HC/DC to get on the same page when there is a lot of pressure on the coaching staff to get the Vikings back into the playoffs but the GM should reasonably be given time/space to build the team his way.
If the power structure is similar to years past, then the GM should be the person with final say. How will that work out if/when KOC and Teasley have disagreements?
The thing working in Teasley’s favor is that KOC and Flores have generally had a lot of success with the players they have picked on both sides of the ball. Quarterback draft pick not withstanding, KOC leading the way on Donovan Jackson and Jordan Addison and Flores caping for free agents like Isaiah Rodgers, Andrew Van Ginkel and Blake Cashman has resulted in a strong overall roster. Teasley will have to find a way to lean into his coaches’ strengths while also putting his own stamp on how the team makes decisions.
4 — Time to evaluate
The situation with Teasley getting hired in late May is certainly unorthodox but it will work in his favor quite nicely.
Rather than having to onboard in January and then make massive decisions right away, Teasley will have the ability to evaluate everything in the Vikings organization and roster over a longer period of time.
Certainly decisions will have to be made soon i.e. contract extensions and remaining free agents but he will be able to make the move to Minnesota and get to know everyone during the coming weeks and then have a chance to see players up close in training camp for six weeks before making calls on cuts and additions at the end of the summer.
In terms of the long-term plan, Teasley has an entire season ahead of him to evaluate the roster that was built by Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell and then maintained by Rob Brzezinski and then decide to either keep it together or overhaul it. It seems logical that the information for the new GM is going to be better when he can see an entire season play out rather than trying to evaluate everything in a very short window without having been there.
5 — The QB situation
At the end of the day, all GMs’ fates are decided by what happens at quarterback. Teasley is taking over a situation where the quarterback spot is not locked in for the future. Kyler Murray is on a one-year contract and JJ McCarthy’s struggles last year have not locked him in as QB1 for the future.
Teasley can decide whether he wants to extend Murray long term, go with McCarthy or look to next year’s draft to find the future of the franchise. Or if there are other options that pop up between now and 2027, he can evaluate those as well.
He will have 2026 to evaluate Murray and McCarthy figure out which direction the team will go into the future.
Said it before, but it’s hard for me to have too hot of a take on a GM hire when we don’t get that clear of a picture on the decision making process inside of the Vikings building, let alone the Seahawks for the last x number of years this guy was there. They hired a guy from a well run team, which is probably better than the alternative. Hopefully they find a QB long term so we don’t have to use that as an excuse again.
on point 1 -- Teasley came up in pro personnel with the Seahawks. He probably didn't have much to do with their drafts directly until 2023 when he became AGM. Schneider had a stretch of pretty terrible drafting for about 5 years (2017-21) before turning things around in 2022 (Cross, Mafe, Walker, etc).
Having said that, Teasley should get a lot of credit for Seattle's trades and free agent signings, going back to 2018 when he took over as director of pro personnel. The only major misfire in that era was the Jamal Adams trade (for two 1sts), and that may have had some of Pete Carroll's fingerprints on it. Seattle made up for that and more with the Russell Wilson trade to Denver (for two 1sts, two 2nds and several players including Noah Fant and Shelby Harris) -- an absolute haul that set up them up for their current Super Bowl window. Other strong recent moves included trading for Leonard Williams (a steal for a 2nd and a 5th) and signing Demarcus Lawrence and Cooper Kupp. Teasley would also get some credit for signing Geno Smith for vet minimum in 2019 -- Geno was a quality starter who gave them the platform to move off of Russ as QB1 -- and then bringing in Darnold last year as the final piece of the puzzle.
Teasley no doubt was also involved in the draft along the way, and would've been one of the decision makers at the table as AGM since 2023, but I doubt he can take full credit for that draft record.
on point 3 -- John Schneider as Seahawks GM may have had final say on the roster, but Pete Carroll as HC had a lot to do with their personnel decisions, especially on defense. It's not clear, but Mike Macdonald probably has similar influence, again on the defensive side of the ball. So Teasley will have experience in a collaborative organization where the GM has to get on the same page with the HC.
on point 5 -- Seattle are one of the organizations that figured out how to win without an elite talent at QB, and break out of the middle-tier of roster quality. Schneider as GM has rings with Russell Wilson (3rd round pick, 5'11") and Sam Darnold (on his 5th team, signed for $33.5M AAV). Between Super Bowls, the Seahawks never tanked -- their only top 10 picks in the last 15 years were Charles Cross and Devon Witherspoon with the Broncos picks for Wilson. They were a consistently good-not-great-but-never-terrible team, much like the Vikings, for about a decade.
It's exciting to think that Teasley moving up the ranks in Seattle was part of their growth and development, which involved finding answers for some of the same questions the Vikings face today. I guess he'll have some specific ideas for how he wants to try to bring about the same kind of improvement in Minnesota