Sam Darnold's Super Bowl trip didn't look good on Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was fired

Sam Darnold is why teams stick to the status quo at quarterback so often. Because when they’re wrong, people get fired.

The Minnesota Vikings firing general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah came from out of nowhere on Friday. The Vikings season had been over for 26 days when they finally made a big decision to fire Adofo-Mensah. It did, however, come just five days after Darnold led the Seattle Seahawks to Super Bowl LX. In the aftermath of a big surprise out of Minnesota, it’s hard to not connect the two.

The Vikings went 14-3 during the 2024 season with Darnold, finished strong this past season to finish 9-8, but they decided for a major shift in the front office.

While it’s unclear immediately why exactly the Vikings made the move or why they decided to do it now, this is what happens when teams make a major mistake at quarterback. Especially when the quarterback they moved on from ends up in a Super Bowl.

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Vikings’ QB decision prompts second guessing

There was no sign that Adofo-Mensah would be fired. He was at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. this week. He met with the media on Thursday. He gave an honest and reflective answer about letting Darnold leave in free agency.

Maybe it was too honest.

“You’re trying to make sure you don’t lock yourselves into what you did and thinking it’s always right. So there are nights you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself,” Adofo-Mensah told the media on Thursday. “I always go back to the process, and what we thought at the time. It’s easier to kind of go and be revisionist and results based. But going to think through what we had at the time, I still understand why we did what we did. The results maybe didn’t play out the way we wanted them to, but ultimately I think at the end of the day we could have executed better in certain places. Not saying individually in terms of a particular player, but just executing better knowing what the room was, play-style wise, experience wise, and putting together a better combination of people, collective in that group. That’s probably what I focused on the most.”

Here was the decision: The Vikings could have at least franchise-tagged Darnold after he helped Minnesota to a 14-3 record and finished in the top 10 of NFL MVP voting, or hand it over to J.J. McCarthy, the 10th pick of the 2024 draft who missed his rookie season due to injury. The Vikings also had Daniel Jones on the roster late in the season, and he moved on to the Indianapolis Colts and had a fine season.

The Vikings chose McCarthy, who played poorly early in the season and missed games with multiple injuries. When Adofo-Mensah spoke of building a better quarterback room “play-style wise, experience wise,” he’s likely referring to going with an unknown quarterback with an injury history, and backing him up with Carson Wentz, another quarterback who has dealt with many injuries. Wentz filled in for McCarthy and suffered a season-ending injury. The entire plan at quarterback didn’t work, at least in McCarthy’s first season. Darnold is a good example of not giving up on a quarterback after a bad start to his career.

It wasn’t outlandish last offseason to choose McCarthy, who was a top-10 pick just a year earlier, and use the extra cap space to build the roster around him. But it didn’t work. And there was a change.

Vikings had some success with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah

Adofo-Mensah didn’t have a perfect four years as Vikings GM, but he did build a very good roster that brought 14 wins in 2023, and still finished above .500 despite bad quarterback play last season.

The reason the Vikings missed the playoffs though was based on their decisions at quarterback. Minnesota traded up for McCarthy, who is still very early in his career but did not play well in his first shot as a starter. They drafted him ahead of Bo Nix, who just helped the Broncos make an AFC championship game. Then they let Darnold walk in free agency. He signed a three-year, $100.5 million deal and helped the Seahawks to an NFC title. He had 346 yards and three touchdowns in the NFC championship game win over the Rams.

There are many reasons a team makes a change as big as the one the Vikings made on Friday. It is never entirely due to one decision, even at a key spot like quarterback. But if the Vikings were in the playoffs with better quarterback play, it seems unlikely Adofo-Mensah would have been fired.

The Vikings hadn’t won a playoff game in Adofo-Mensah’s four seasons as GM, but they were 43-25. That type of success isn’t easy in the NFL. But the Vikings preferred a change, and did it at a very odd time. They did so less than 24 hours after the Atlanta Falcons hired Ian Cunningham to be their new general manager.

The Vikings announced executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski will run the offseason through the draft, and then they’ll have a full search for a new GM, which is also odd. Whoever Minnesota does choose as its next GM, they better get the quarterback situation right. We’ve seen what happens if you don’t.