Pro Football Rumors
The Vikings took their time finding a new general manager after firing Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in February. Vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski steered Minnesota through free agency and the draft, which included the addition of ex-Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray and first-round defensive tackle Caleb Banks.
The team waited another month to make their permanent GM hire, longtime Seahawks executive Andrew Healy. He brought Trent Kirchner with him from Seattle to serve as co-assistant general manager alongside former Browns vice president of strategy Andrew Healy. The trio has since filled out the Vikings’ front office, per team writer Lindsey Young, headlined by the hire of former Bears GM Ryan Pace as a football advisor.
Pace, 49, came up in the Saints’ front office, primarily in the scouting department, before landing the top job in Chicago in 2015. The Bears compiled a 48-65 record over the next six years with two first-round playoff exits, ultimately resulting in Pace’s firing following the 2021 season. He spent the last four years in Atlanta with the last two as the vice president of football operations and player personnel. The Falcons’ offseason front office restructure effectively eliminated Pace’s role with former quarterback Matt Ryan taking on a title of president of football.
Two other key hires are director of football strategy Tyler Hamblin and assistant director of pro scouting Azzaam Kapadia. Hamblin worked closely with Healy in Cleveland from 2017 to 2025 with the last two as director of football operations. The two also overlapped with Kapadia, who worked as a part-time film analyst for the Browns in 2022 and 2023 before spending the next three years under Healy and Kirchner in Seattle.
The team also made promotions in their scouting and analytics department. In the former, Dabness Atkins has been elevated from associated to assistant and Jack Murphy from BLESTO/college scout to college area scout. Replacing Murphy will be Brian Schnorr, who previously served as a scouting associate.
Chris French, formerly a football quantitative methods analyst, is now the director of football quantitative methods, the highest analytics-focused role in the Vikings’ new front office. This is a somewhat notable move given reports that Adofo-Mensah’s analytics background created some friction within the team during his tenure as GM. Healy and Hamblin, though, come from a forward-thinking Browns organization, where they worked for Adofo-Mensah for several years.
Working under French will be Claire Morrison, who was a football data scientist for the Jaguars for two years before joining the Vikings as a football analyst last year. Her new title is football quantitative methods analyst.
With several top positions filled, the Vikings will likely move on lower-level scouts and other assistant roles in the coming weeks as they preparing for training camp and the upcoming college and NFL seasons.
