Around the NFC North: Vikings Hire a GM
Vikings poach the Seahawks assistant GM.
By Mike Price
The Vikings hired Nolan Teasley this past week. Teasley was the assistant GM for the Seahawks. Teasley was hired as a pro scout for the team just 12 years ago and zoomed up the ranks to be John Schneider's number two in 2023. He played college football for Central Washington from 2002-2004 as a running back. It's certainly worth noting that Teasley likely had a huge role in the Seahawks' decision to sign Sam Darnold last offseason after the Vikings bid him adieu.
Rob Brzezinski, the Vikings' Russ Ball, who ran the team's draft and free agency, will stay on in the same Russ Ball-type role.
Where Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was known for his analytics background, Teasley is a true-blue scout. That said, Teasley is a branch of a branch of the Ron Wolf tree and likely considers athleticism as much as, if not more than, scouting profile. Remember, the Seahawks famously used the SPARQ ratio when they were building their original dominant defense.
With the Seahawks' recent history in mind, let's quickly review what the Vikings did this offseason before hiring Teasley.
In free agency, the team managed to keep Aaron Jones, sadly, but got rid of defensive tackles Javon Hargrave (amazing) and Jonathan Allen (admittedly taken a step back), watched center Ryan Kelly retire, and then traded, arguably, their best defensive player, edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, to the Eagles. 75% of their starting d-line from last season gone just like that.
If I had to guess, Teasley probably would've liked to keep one of those defensive linemen - the Seahawks have always built around the line - but the Vikings definitely needed to do most of those things thanks to their lack of cap space.
Of course, the biggest move in free agency was signing Kyler Murray to be quarterback. Interestingly, Teasley does have eight years or so of experience building around an overrated sub-6-foot-tall QB. I can't imagine h wouldn't have done the basically free signing. Though it will be interesting to see what he says in the coming months about JJ McCarthy (and Dallas Turner fwiw).
The other signings that the team made in free agency, Eric Wilson and James Pierre, probably don't move the needle much either way.
On to the draft. I actually think Caleb Banks, injury-prone potential superstar DT, in the first is about as classic Seahawks pick as you get - they love doing weird stuff in the first round. Likewise, we know that Big Citrus compares well athletically ot Kenny Clark. I think those two picks are probably in line with a Seahawks-type draft.
Golday, I don't know. He is an obvious Brian Flores pick and, I guess, you could say that Wolf-tree GMs in general listen to their coaches.
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Mike Price is a lifelong Packers fan who recently moved from Utah to Stoughton (a Madison suberb). You can follow him on twitter at @themikeprice.
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Comments (9)
Zapato
June 02, 2026 at 09:48 am
I don't expect much from the Vikings this year. Teasley is pretty much stuck with what someone else gave him for the upcoming season. Still, I expect he'll shake things up a little bit with trades or the signing of some older veterans coming off injury or just trying to revive their career. Time will tell.
And in keeping with the theme of this column: "The Bears Still Suck!"
BuckyBadger
June 02, 2026 at 09:49 am
Outside of QB the Vikings have a good roster. Might need some help on the DL or some guys to prove out but over all that roster can compete. I don't really think McCarthy or Murray are a big threat so hopefully they waste the talent they have.
The big story is the trading for Myles Garrett. I am not sure I understand it for the Rams. You traded away a good pass rusher that was younger and gave up some good draft picks. I get the Rams want to get over the hump to win that next title and they have the roster to do it but than why take Simpson in the 1st round when you could give yourself depth or another contributor? Rams have a lot of talent but their depth past their starters is questionable and trading away a bunch of picks and burning a 1st on a project QB isn't going to help that. If they win the Super Bowl all will be forgotten but once again Les Snead pushes all his chips into the table. I guess it worked out last time. I really like what the Browns have done recently outside of drafting a bunch of back up QBs. If they can solve the QB issues (huge colossal size if here) they can compete.
AJ Brown to the Pats will help the Eagles in the long run. They now get more picks for a player that was barely trying last year.
LambeauPlain
June 02, 2026 at 09:53 am
The first game of the season should be a good test of how both the Packers and Ugly Purple have navigated the off season. The Packers Love & OL vs the Flores helter skelter D with a rebuilt DL will probably tell the tail.
Will the Packers be further ahead with solidifying their OL in game 1 or the Ugly Purple with their revamped DL?
Packer should prevail, yet the OL, under LaFleur, Stenovich and Butkus is rarely ready to go as a cohesive OL unit to start the season due to coaching indecision and/or injury.
Leatherhead
June 02, 2026 at 11:49 am
OConnell has had a good record at 43-25 , and was 9-8 last year, one half-game worse than us.
But. He's never won a playoff game in four seasons and you have to wonder how long the Vikings will stick with this guy (who I think is a pretty good coach). A last place finish in the division might be the end of KOC.
Bitternotsour
June 02, 2026 at 12:39 pm
O'Connell is a good coach. He's won with different quarterbacks, he just hasn't won with NO quarterback. Not sure if that was his call on McCarthy, but whoever called it has to own it. That said, it's hard to win in the playoffs. If they fire him they deserve whatever happens next.
I expect them (the Vikings with Kyler Murray) to finish above the Bears and the Lions.
Kyler seems a good fit for O'Connell.
BuckyBadger
June 02, 2026 at 01:01 pm
I think O'Connell's work with QBs has been overstated. Since he has taken over in 2022 He has had Cousins play well and went 7-10 with they year they played musical chairs in 2023 and had a good year with Sam Darnold which looking like more like Darnold can ball rather than O'Connell being a genius. Last year McCarthy looked lost.
If they fail this year I think he is gone with a new GM in town.
Leatherhead
June 02, 2026 at 03:02 pm
"" If they fire him they deserve whatever happens next. ""
Words of Wisdom. Get a Chisel and a Stone.
Now, let's assume that you're correct that Minnesota is going to be better than the Lions. That could mean that Dan Campbell misses the playoffs for the second straight year and the Lions might just fire him.
The four NFC coaches: KOC, LaFleur, Campbell, Johnson. Which one(s) of them has a job next year? Maybe LaFleur, definitely Johnson, but I think either KOC or Campbell will be fired before next season, and my money is on Campbell. I think you're probably right about the KOC-Kyler combo.
Minnesota will find some other way to screw things up. Trying to figure out how they'll screw themselves into the ground is one of the great pleasures of the season.
My best guess is that the Packers will dominate and destroy them in the opener in front of their home fans, and it'll demoralize the team, and then injuries will happen and they'll have a disappointing season.
BuckyBadger
June 02, 2026 at 08:59 pm
Campbell is safe for another year. That franchise hasn't won enough to fire a coach that has give them the most success in 20 years.
Vikings have a new GM who might want his own coach.
Thegreatreynoldo
June 03, 2026 at 02:22 am
MN hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah from Cleveland, which meant that Cleveland got a 3rd round comp pick (99th) in 2022 and 2023. But the Browns are the Browns, and they selected WR David Bell, who was waived in 2024. He retired in 2025 with an unspecified off-season injury. The Browns used their comp pick (98th) in 2023 to select DT Siaki Ika, who managed to play 100 snaps in his rookie year and then was waived in August of 2024. IOWs, he was a total bust, though he has hung around on Practice Squads since then.
I could not help but notice that SF also got comp picks for losing a minority executive in 2022 and 2023. SF took Jake Moody with the 99th pick in 2023, a pretty good pick, albeit for a kicker. He is good, though. SF is not perfect, either; they traded the comp pick in 2022 as part of a bigger package to move up in the 2021 draft to select Trey Lance with the 3rd pick.
Now, it looks like Seattle with get a third round comp pick in 2027 and 2028 since Beasley worked for Seattle for the 2 full years required by the NFL.