Vikings make shocking Kwesi Adofo-Mensah move after massive Twins change

Earlier on Friday, the Minnesota Twins surprised the MLB community when they announced that they and team president of baseball/business operations Derek Falvey had "mutually agreed to part ways." 

The NFL's Minnesota Vikings followed that with a stunning development of their own. 

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah won't have a say in J.J. McCarthy's future

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero and others reported on Friday afternoon that the Vikings have fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah after four seasons with the organization. 

Under Adofo-Mensah, who signed a multiyear contract extension in May 2025, the Vikings qualified for the playoffs twice over the past four years. However, Minnesota notched zero postseason wins during his tenure. 

"Following our annual end-of-season organizational meetings over the last several weeks and after careful consideration, we have decided it is in the best interest of the team to move forward with new leadership of our football operations," Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf said in a released statement. "These decisions are never easy. We are grateful for Kwesi's contributions and commitment to the organization over the past four years and wish him and his family the best in the future. Effective immediately, executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski will lead our operations through the 2026 NFL Draft. ...After the draft, we intend to conduct a thorough search to identify our next general manager. Building a team that can contend for championships drives us every day, and we look forward to bringing our fans the success they so deserve."

The Vikings finished their regular season back on Jan. 4. 

Adofo-Mensah's time with the Vikings may be most remembered for the club allowing quarterback Sam Darnold to reach free agency last March after Darnold guided Minnesota to a 14-3 record before he endured a nightmare outing in a wild-card playoff loss. Darnold subsequently signed with the Seattle Seahawks and now has them in the Super Bowl, while a new-look Vikings regime could potentially move on from second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy this coming spring. 

Earlier in January, Adofo-Mensah vowed he would get Minnesota's quarterback room to "a competitive, deep-enough standpoint to get that play-style, that ability to win games for 17-plus games in a season." 

Vikings' breakup with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah seemingly had been coming

While many outsiders didn't expect Adofo-Mensah to be shown the door so late into January, it appears a divorce had been coming. 

"There’s been a lot of noise over the last several weeks that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was in hot water in Minnesota and that there were relationship issues within the building," NFL insider Jordan Schultz explained.

ESPN's Adam Schefter (h/t Kevin Seifert) noted that "there was talk about an underlying 'tension' in the Vikings' building in league circles" throughout this past season. 

"One league source told Schefter it had been 'ugly' in Minnesota," Seifert added.