MINNEAPOLIS — The Vikings began their first in-person interview for their general manager job with Browns vice president of football operations Kwesi Adofo-Mensah on Tuesday. It could be the only in-person interview they conduct for the job.
Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles, who was scheduled to meet with the Vikings in Minnesota on Wednesday, is reportedly in negotiations to be the Bears' general manager. He had a second interview with Bears ownership on Tuesday.
Adofo-Mensah and Poles were the only two candidates the Vikings had scheduled to interview in Minnesota, and Adofo-Mensah now appears to be the clear favorite for the job.
The 40-year-old Adofo-Mensah would bring a markedly different approach to the Vikings' front office than any GM in team history. He played basketball at Princeton, graduating from the school with an economics degree, and worked on Wall Street trading energy derivatives and commodities before earning a master's degree in economics from Stanford and being hired by the 49ers in 2013.
The Browns made Adofo-Mensah their vice president of football operations in May 2020, adding him to a front office building around analytics with Andrew Berry and Paul DePodesta, and he quickly earned attention around the league as Cleveland returned to the playoffs for the first time in 18 years with former Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski as head coach.
Though Dennis Green served as the de facto general manager during his final years as head coach, Adofo-Mensah would be the first Black man to have the GM title in Minnesota if he is hired. Like Vikings co-owner Mark Wilf, he is a New Jersey native who graduated from Princeton, and took a similar path from Wall Street to the NFL as Vikings chief operating officer Andrew Miller, who is leading the team's search for a new GM and negotiating contracts with prospective GM and head coach hires.
Poles, who'd also been a finalist for the Giants' GM job, was scheduled to be the second finalist to talk with the Vikings. He had been talking with prospective head coaching candidates he might want to hire if he landed a GM job, but sources said Tuesday morning they expected that job would be in Chicago, which had signed the former Boston College offensive lineman as an undrafted free agent in 2008.
