Minnesota Vikings firing of GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah could loom large with J.J. McCarthy’s future
The Vikings are at a crossroads going into the 2026 season, and their decision at quarterback could stem from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s firing.
The Minnesota Vikings’ decision to fire general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah sent shockwaves throughout the NFL. It wasn’t so much that they made the move as how odd the timing was.
The Vikings allowed Adofo-Mensah to represent them at the Senior Bowl and fired him upon his return. It sent a strong signal that head coach Kevin O’Connell has a lot of power in the organization.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s firing casts shadow over J.J. McCarthy’s future
It’s evident that the Vikings have decided Adofo-Mensah is the scapegoat for the lack of transcendent success that they believe the team should have had over the last few seasons. Co-owner Mark Wilf essentially confirmed this during his press conference right after the decision was announced.
“There will be no further moves on that front,” said Wilf. “And like I said, we have tremendous confidence in coach O’Connell, our coaching staff, and our entire football operations, and scouting and evaluation team.”
It’s quite interesting that Adofo-Mensah seems to be getting all the blame here, but that’s the world we are living in. Being that he’s getting all of the blame, how much will he get for the selection of quarterback J.J. McCarthy?
As things stand right now, McCarthy is far from a sure thing. He has played in just 10 of a possible 35 games, and his performance in those games hasn’t been good enough, ranking toward the bottom in multiple advanced metrics.
- 35th in EPA/play
- 34th in success rate
- 36th in completion percentage
- 33rd in expected completion percentage
- 36th in completion percentage over expected
It’s brutal to see this kind of performance, especially considering O’Connell’s prowess as a quarterback whisperer, but that’s where we sit.
There is one quote from Adofo-Mensah that lends some credence to him receiving the bulk of the blame for his selection.
“In a perfect world, you would have had a full sample, three years of watching him play in the NFL before. That’s not how this works,” said Adofo-Mensah in his end-of-season press conference. “And sometimes you have to go on incomplete information. And the information we had was all good, but it was admittedly incomplete and small sampled. So ultimately, we trusted in the information we had, we trusted our coaches, we trusted in the team around him to do that.”
Kevin O’Connell has a path to move on from J.J. McCarthy
Making a decision with incomplete information is the reality of every draft pick because they haven’t played in the NFL yet. However, the tone of that answer is much worse than the words themselves, and it gives off the vibe of the Christian Ponder pick in 2011.
What was the common thread between those two selections? Rob Brzezinski was a key figure in the front office, including being in the triangle of authority back then.
We know that Ponder was one of the, if not the, worst NFL Draft picks in Vikings’ history. It’s far too soon to know if McCarthy is on that level, but things are setting up for O’Connell to have a runway to move on from him.
The one thing that stands out is a quote from O’Connell back in September of 2024, talking about failing young quarterbacks.
“I believe that organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations. And that’s not that there’s no specific example in my mind that I could give you of a team or a quarterback, just overall 30,000-foot view,” said O’Connell on an episode of The Rich Eisen Show.
Moving on from McCarthy after just 10 games could be seen as failing the young quarterback, especially with only 243 passes thrown in the NFL and less than 1,000 since graduating high school five seasons ago. However, the Vikings can argue McCarthy has failed them by suffering five injuries in his first two seasons. Not being on the field is a major problem, especially at quarterback.
This isn’t to say that moving on from McCarthy is definitely in the Vikings’ plans. However, things are setting up well for them to make a strong move if they so choose. Anthony Richardson is a player to watch if they decide to look for another quarterback next season.
For an offseason with a lot of intrigue, this is raising it even more.