Vikings Front Office Hiires

A day after the Minnesota Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, I put together a list of candidates to replace him. It was as if I was part of the process. The efforts were ignored by those with an actual say. Anyway, some of the potential candidates were easy as they’ve been targets in recent general manager searches. I went searching for others. That search included a thorough scan of the front offices across the league with proven team-building success. The Seattle Seahawks were one of those teams. Two from that front office stood out. Trent Kirchner and Nolan Teasley. I picked Kirchner for my list of candidates mostly for his 27 years of scouting and team-building experience. Teasley had about half that. I apparently missed the fact that he’d risen past Kirchner in half the time. Ignoring my list of potential candidates, the Vikings hired Nolan Teasley to be their next general manager. Good move by the Vikings. By all appearances, he looks like an outstanding hire. It got even better yesterday as Teasley hired Trent Kirchner to be one of his assistant general manager. The Vikings ultimately hired both of my favorites. 

One of the first tasks of a general manager is to make some adjustments to his new team’s front office. Nolan Teasley brought in Trent Kirchner from the Seattle Seahawks and Andrew Healy from the Cleveland Browns. Each will have the title of assistant general manager. For Kirchner, it’s a homecoming. He’s a native of Fulda, Minnesota and attended and played quarterback at St. John’s University. He got his NFL start as an intern with the Seahawks, splitting time between public relations and college scouting. He was hired as college scouting coordinator by the Washington Redskins. His eight years scouting for the Carolina Panthers really set him on his football path and led to his return to Seattle in 2010. From there he moved up the front office ladder and gained a reputation as one of the best talent evaluators in the league. His work and growing respect earned him general manager interviews with the Detroit Lions, New York Jets, Indianapolis Colts, San Francisco 49ers, and Houston Texans. It wouldn’t surprise if he continues to receive attention for future GM openings. That’s for another day. It’s silly to think of his potential departure from Minnesota before his actual arrival. Andrew Healy comes from the analytical side of football. He has a degree in math from Yale and a PhD in economics from MIT. He taught economics at Loyola Marymount University. He’s an analytics guy. For the last five years he’s been the Browns VP of research and strategy. In that role, Healy led the integration of data and advanced insights into all parts of football operations. Along with the reports of the hires came a report that Healy will be the Vikings #2 football executive. It may have taken that to pry him from the Browns. 

At his introductory press conference, Nolan Teasley said that he was “guided by evaluation and anchored by data.” In Trent Kirchner and Andrew Healy, Teasley has his evaluation and data assistants. It’s a dynamite team.