Terrance Gray - Buffalo Bills Assistant General Manager
Dave Ziegler - Tennessee Titans Assistant General Manager
RJ Gillen - San Francisco 49ers Assistant General Manager
Chad Alexander - Los Angeles Chargers Assistant General Manager
John McKay - Los Angeles Rams General Manager
Nolan Teasley - Seattle Seahawks Assistant General Manager
Interim GM and long-time salary cap expert, Rob Brzezinski expressed an interest in the full-time job and is an internal candidate. A few days after the first six names were revealed, three more external candidates were added.
Ray Agnew - Detroit Lions Assistant General Manager
Reed Burkhardt - Denver Broncos Assistant General Manager
Kyle Smith - Miami Dolphins Assistant General Manager
Pretty much from the moment Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was fired on January 30, Los Angeles Chargers Assistant General Manager Chad Alexander was my favorite for the job. I’ve always preferred career scouts over football people focused on the analytics of the game. I get the importance of analytics in the evaluation process. I just prefer a background of on-field evaluation over spreadsheet evaluation. Alexander has been scouting football players since 1999. He was with Ozzie Newsome and the Baltimore Ravens for 20 of those years. Unfortunately, he withdrew his name from consideration for the Vikings job last weekend.
The first round of interviews were conducted before Vikings ownership departed for this week’s league meetings in Orlando. Upon their return, the team’s decision-makers will conduct in-person interviews with the finalists. According to Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, there are four external candidates and one internal candidate.
Terrance Gray - Buffalo Bills Assistant General Manager
John McKay - Los Angeles Rams Assistant General Manager
Nolan Teasley - Seattle Seahawks Assistant General Manager
Reed Burkhardt - Denver Broncos Assistant General Manager
and
Rob Brzezinski- Minnesota Vikings Interim GM/EVP - Football Operations
All four external candidates come from teams with recent team-building and on-field success. That’s a good thing. All four also have connections to the Vikings organization or people in the Vikings organization. Terrance Gray and Reed Burkhardt spent more than a decade as scouts for the Vikings. Both should still be well-known to many in the building. John McKay crossed paths with Kevin O’Connell with the Los Angeles Rams. Nolan Teasley is a little less connected. When Rob Brzezinski was tapped to guide the Vikings this offseason, former Seattle Seahawks cap guru Matt Thomas was brought out of retirement to assist in Minnesota. Thomas was in Seattle as Teasley rose through the organization.
Then there’s Rob Brzezinski.
Throughout this important change, I’ve favored Rob Brzezinski returning to his Executive Vice President - Football Operations role. Maybe it’s an expanded role. He’s been a crucial franchise fixture for nearly 30 years. If he’s truly interested in the general manager job, it doesn’t feel right to send him back to where he’s been. Brzezinski is a team- and consensus-builder. Actually, he perfectly matches what owner Mark Wilf says they’re looking for in someone for the GM job. Personally, I prefer a general manager that’s spent their career evaluating football talent. In my Vikings dream world, Brzezinski becomes more involved in the football operations than he’s been. Perhaps that opens up an opportunity for Emily Badis to become even more involved in contract negotiations and salary cap management. Most important, in that Vikings dream world, an external candidate is hired as general manager. It’s been an emerging trend in the league that the GM works below a football operations person. Brzezinski is too important to the franchise to be on the annual chopping block. The GM is always a few bad decisions away from being fired.
So, Rob Brzezinski oversees football operations and helps make spectacular TCO Performance Center a happy place moving towards great on-field success. The Vikings then hire one of the four finalists to run the football decision-making process. Many fans and pundits want one person making all decisions. I think those people just want someone to blame when a decision turns bad. For things to work, there has to be a consensus between the front office and coaches. Brzezinski has already shown that he can help build that. Nothing works on the field if people aren’t on the same page off the field. Of the four external finalists, I wouldn’t mind seeing any of them running things in Minnesota. Right now, I’m leaning Nolan Teasley. Tomorrow, it could be Terrance Gray. Next week? John McKay. Maybe Reed Burkhardt. I just want to get to the other side of this important GM decision. I’m ready for just the usual football stuff. Roster and training camp thoughts.
