Top candidate linked to Vikings’ general manager job has severe ties to Minnesota, but it’s a path they should avoid
The top candidate to replace Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is one the Vikings are familiar with, but that in itself is the problem.
When the Minnesota Vikings fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and put Rob Brzezinski in charge as the interim general manager, they set their future in motion. The really interesting part of this entire situation is the Vikings will be waiting until after the NFL Draft to make their next general manager hire.
“Rob Brzezinski will lead our football operations in the interim through the draft and will rely heavily on Kevin [O’Connell], the coaching staff, the talent evaluators we have on this personnel side,” said co-owner Mark Wilf. “We have an excellent, strong organization. Rob brings tremendous credibility and experience, understands our roster and has an innate ability to build consensus with coaches and personnel. In terms of the long term, certainly, we will have conversations and begin laying the groundwork for a process now, but from a practical perspective of where we are on the football cycle, and in order to give ourselves the best outcome, we expect to conduct a thorough search to identify our next general manager after the draft.”
Minnesota Vikings top general manager candidate has a history in Minnesota
There are multiple candidates the Vikings can interview, and the pool is especially deep due to only two new general managers being hired this offseason in Jon-Eric Sullivan with the Miami Dolphins and Ian Cunningham with the Chicago Bears. The one candidate that the Vikings have been linked to this early in the process is an old friend.
Denver Broncos general manager George Paton.
He was with the Vikings for 14 seasons, going from the director of player personnel in 2007 to assistant general manager in 2012 and adding vice president of player personnel in 2015. He took the general manager job with the Broncos ahead of the 2021 season. That offseason is where things started to to awry, and it started oddly enough with the NFL Draft. I spoke to our general manager expert and former Broncos writer AJ Schulte about what’s been going on with Paton.
“George Paton immediately started off his tenure in Denver with controversy, passing on multiple quarterbacks in the 2021 NFL Draft to take cornerback Patrick Surtain II (a move that was wise in hindsight, but had many fans clamoring for his job at the time),” said Schulte. “Throughout the rest of his time as general manager, Paton has proven to be a shrewd drafter, bringing in talents like Surtain, Nik Bonitto, Jonathan Cooper, and Quinn Meinerz. His prowess has extended to free agency and trades as well, plucking players like Zach Allen, John Franklin-Myers, Ben Powers, Mike McGlinchey, and DJ Jones, while getting strong returns in trades with players like Devaughn Vele and Von Miller.”
The Broncos were arguably a Bo Nix injury away from being in the Super Bowl this season, and it’s mainly due to the roster that Paton has helped construct. Finding your starting edge rushers outside of the top 50 is a really impressive feat, and he ended up being right about taking a franchise cornerback in Surtain.
Why George Paton might return to Minnesota
Being that Paton is already a general manager, why would Paton want to leave? It could be as simple as he would like to return to Minnesota to work for the Wilf’s. The other angle is that head coach Sean Payton has roster control. Even so, Schulte isn’t convinced he would leave.
“His success in Denver has coincided with Sean Payton’s arrival, but the team was already on track before Payton got there, a fact that no doubt played a part in the move to add Payton,” continued Schulte. “Paton and Payton have a strong relationship together, although I do think it might be fair to wonder who has the most say in personnel, as that was a point of contention for Payton in New Orleans.
“Quite frankly, I’d be stunned if Paton left the Broncos or if the Broncos wanted him out of the building. However, he is entering the final year of his contract, and he did spend over a decade with the Vikings. If Minnesota could pull off any sort of package to bring him back, it would be one of their best additions in years.”
Here’s the thing. Bringing Paton back into the fold might be a good idea, but it doesn’t solve the biggest issue the Vikings are facing: they still have too many of Rick Spielman’s people in the building. We can place all of the blame on Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, but the biggest area of criticism is a combination of not trusting the right people and a failure to cultivate relationships.
Just because Brzezinski is taking over, it doesn’t mean that the Vikings will have fixed their issues. They will just be bringing back another person from the era of Spielman, who was fired one year after Paton left.
Paton is a good general manager, but it might not be what’s best for the Vikings.
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