Vikings owner answers: What does the GM of the future look like?
Mark Wilf sat down with the Twin Cities media and shed light on the upcoming GM search
By Matthew Coller
Phoenix, Arizona — It wasn’t all that long ago that the Minnesota Vikings surprisingly fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah right before the Super Bowl. The unorthodox timing drew plenty of questions about how the Vikings would manage this offseason.
Were they going to go buck wild with restructuring contracts, signing free agents with void deals out the wazoo and making trades that sent as many draft picks out of Minnesota as possible?
Turns out none of that stuff happened with interim general manager Rob Brzezinski at the helm. Instead this offseason has been the polar opposite. Rather than TCO Performance Center turning into the song “24 Hours to Live,” Brzezinski’s front office was patient throughout the offseason, keeping the future in mind while tidying up some contracts to keep players like TJ Hockenson and Aaron Jones.
At the owner’s meetings in Phoenix on Monday, Vikings owner Mark Wilf said that he is very happy with the way things have played out with Brzezinski at the helm.
“I’ve been very pleased with how the offseason’s gone so far,” Wilf told Purple Insider and reporters from ESPN, The Athletic, the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune. “Rob and Kevin [O’Connell] are really working well together. Clear, strong decision making, very intentional on how we’re approaching all the steps….we feel really good about the direction we’re going, and we’re excited about the draft coming up.”
In the coming weeks, Brzezinski will be part of a very familiar NFL Draft process for a person who has been a major part of the front office for several decades, only he will be running it this time.
Whether this will be the only draft Brzezinski runs from the top is still up in the air.
Wilf said that the team is in the “early stages of setting up a [GM search] process to begin right after the draft.”
He added that they will have an “ownership-driven” process, which indicates that they will lead the way rather than hiring an outside firm, though Wilf did note that they may use a “third party” to help them find candidates to interview.
As far as whether Brzezinski is going to be a candidate, Wilf was dodgy. When asked whether he was being evaluated for the job on the work that he’s done over the last couple of months, Wilf joked, “Rob’s been with us for 21 years,” but he would not confirm that he’s part of the discussion.
However, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport told the Vikings Entertainment Network that he believes the long-time Vikings is a quality candidate.
“He’s always had a strong voice in the organization,” Rapoport said. “He’s always been someone where you say, if a team was smart and they wanted to hire a GM who doesn’t just scout, doesn’t just grind tape, but really understands how an organization works, really operates at a very high level, does great contracts, makes really good trades, just runs the business of football, he’d be someone teams should hire and for whatever reason, partially because he’s very loyal, Rob Brzezinski has stayed in Minnesota.”
The work that is beginning right now is Wilf and the search party deciding what type of general manager they are looking for. There are different specific qualities that you could include like whether the new GM is experienced or a first-timer, whether they are connected to Kevin O’Connell in some way or not and whether they come from an evaluation background as a scout/personnel person or if they have a different background like Brzezinski’s work with the salary cap.
But those aren’t the things that Wilf focused on when talking with the Twin Cities media. He laid out his criteria.
“We certainly want someone who is a great leader,” Wilf said. “Someone who feel we will have great scouting staff, great coaching staff, and of course, never resting on any laurels, who want to continue to strive to be the best, want to be competitive every single year, and have long term success. So someone’s got to fit within that. It’s got to fit within what we have in our building right now, as well. So it’s a host of factors. Hopefully, we’ll know when we see it.”
There’s some layers to pick apart there.
The leadership element was at the center of the team’s decision to fire Adofo-Mensah. Just like when teams tend to search for offensive head coaches after they have had defensive head coaches, emphasizing leadership would indicate that their aim might be someone who is on the opposite side of the spectrum from Adofo-Mensah in background.
When it comes to having a great scouting staff, it’s worth wondering whether the Wilfs are targeted GM candidates who will keep most of the front office in tact or if they are willing to allow a total overhaul. Adofo-Mensah mostly had to win over Rick Spielman’s front office when he was hired. Would they let someone clear house and bring in all of their people?
When Wilf mentions being competitive every year, history tells us that he means it. The Vikings have not proven to be a team that is willing to take major steps back. That could result in some very interesting conversations about where the franchise is headed in 2027. If they do not have a great season with Kyler Murray at the helm, the most prudent thing to do based on the age of the roster and current contracts would be to have the GM wipe the slate clean and totally rebuild in their vision?
One thing that I was curious to find out in Phoenix was whether the Wilfs had any thoughts of changing the organizational structure.
There is a case for putting a president of operations or something like that above the general manager and having that person act as the liaison to the Wilfs. The argument would be that the last two GM-HC pairings ended up on different planes (that’s putting in Minnesota nice terms) and it seemed that ownership discovered the internal issues late.
When I posed the question to Wilf, he said that they are comfortable with how things have been done recently.
“I think we like the way we’ve done it, as far as the structure and the GM will report its ownership,” Wilf said. “It has to be strongly collaborative with the coach and with our football operations team. I think we’re gonna stay. So, the way we’ve done, it’s just a matter of getting the right person.”
From that standpoint, Brzezinski makes a lot of sense as the right pick. They couldn’t ask for someone who has more experience or is more invested in the fate of the franchise. All indications are that Brzezinski and O’Connell have great respect for each other and have managed this offseason well together, despite the lack of headline-worthy moves.
Hiring Brzezinski would also alleviate the uncomfortable nature of bringing in a new GM to work with a head coach who has had his ups and downs. Usually HCs do not make it five years without playoff wins and the Wilfs have not taken multiple years without postseason berths very well but O’Connell’s winning seasons have seen a lot of winning (13 victories in 2022 and 14 in 2024). Both years where his quarterback played the full season, the Vikings had two of their best winning seasons in team history. Both years where they suffered QB injuries, the results were middling.
So where does he stand in the Wilfs’ eyes?
“Kevin, we think he does a great job, certainly in how he approaches the development of the players, how he game-plans, how he works with the team, and the culture he’s brought to the Vikings,” Wilf said. “I think that’s still very strong, very impactful. So, uh, we have high confidence in Kevin that he’s gonna get it through where we have to get to. So, we’re very pleased with Kevin O’Connell.”
If they are pleased, then finding a pairing with O’Connell should be at the top of the criteria list with having a leader who shares the Wilfs’ vision to be competitive every year.
We will soon start finding out what types of candidates they are targeting.