The Minnesota Vikings are now three years into the era of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O'Connell. They are 34-17 in the regular season during their competitive rebuild and have made the playoffs twice. Now, it's not great to also have a 0-2 record in the playoffs, but their journey toward a Super Bowl is just beginning.

The biggest element with both O'Connell and Adofo-Mensah is their contracts. They are set to expire after the 2025 season, leaving them both up for an extension. They each had their season-ending press conference on Thursday afternoon and made public comments on it.

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Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah comment on contract extensions

Adofo-Mensah had the first press conference on Thursday and was very open about the contract situation. In classic Adofo-Mensah fashion, he said a lot while not saying much at all.

"I try to keep most of the conversations with ownership private, but you know, we did share time after the season, as we always do when they come in the building. And you know, they expressed to me their appreciation for Kevin and I's leadership. And you know, they're really supportive of us. And so I'm always going to go back to that, the gratitude that I have for them and that I want to be the general manager going forward, I don't really wake up thinking about stuff like that.

"So, you know, my conversations with them, with anybody else, I think it was at a Minnesota football game earlier this year, and somebody said, good luck with the contract. And it like kind of opened me up, because that's just not how I live my life. I don't think I'm entitled to anything. If I signed that contract tomorrow, I'd be running like I was scared, you know, just trying to always earn it. If somebody's chasing you, somebody's trying to be better than you, you gotta, you gotta. So I don't really spend a ton of time of that thinking about that. I'm unbelievably grateful to be the general manager of the Vikings, and I want to continue to be, so I'm gonna leave this office to the Vikings and work hard to try and improve this team, and whatever comes in the future will come. But that's where I'm at right now."

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O'Connell was a little bit more direct when talking about his potential extension.

"I do," said O'Connell about wanting an extension. "And I've had great dialog with the with our ownership this week and reflection as the season came to an end, and anything beyond that, you know, I prefer to kind of keep those discussions internal."

It's pretty normal for O'Connell to want to keep things in-house. He's been that way about many topics, giving a politically correct answer in those situations. However, he was pressed on the issue with the follow-up question being about the reported tension between him and ownership.

"What I would say is I love being the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, and with that becomes the fact that I love our ownership. I have a great relationship with our ownership. And, you know, feel so fortunate, like I said, you know, not only just the way they support us and believe in us, but also, you know, the impact they have on our players, on our locker room, and ultimately, where we all want to go together. Feel very, very great about that."

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It's been a very good tenure both individuals and the extensions are likely to come anytime now. The real question is why they weren't extended before. It's due to how the VIkings handle their business. They wait until the contracts are about to expire, something The Star Tribune's Ben Goessling wrote about.

The team had given Mike Zimmer his first contract extension after two seasons as head coach in 2016, but the Vikings’ standard practice has been to wait until the final year of a coach’s or GM’s deal before finalizing extensions, as they did for Zimmer and Rick Spielman before giving the former coach and GM one-year extensions in 2019 and three-year extensions in 2020.

Right now, we shouldn't be worried about the lack of an extension. Both O'Connell and Adofo-Mensah didn't express any concern about them not getting done and that's a good thing.

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