Pro Football Rumors
Only three general manager vacancies emerged this offseason. One of them came from the removal of longtime Dolphins GM Chris Grier, whom the team dismissed last October. Grier had been in Miami’s GM chair since 2016 and held final personnel say beginning in 2019. The Dolphins now have Jon-Eric Sullivan, a long-running Packers exec, at the controls.
The Falcons tabbed Ian Cunningham for their GM gig weeks later, but like Grier when the Dolphins promoted him to GM 10 years ago, he does not have final personnel say. Matt Ryan, hired as the team’s president of football (a new position for which Cunningham also interviewed), will hold that power. As a result, the NFL did not award the Bears two third-round picks for Cunningham — Chicago’s assistant GM from 2022-26 — becoming a minority exec to land a GM post.
The Vikings waited until late January to fire Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who had been the team’s GM since 2022. Despite extending Adofo-Mensah last year, Minnesota moved on but waited until after the draft to hire a replacement. The NFL had not seen a post-draft GM search commence since 2022, but the Vikings canvassed the league’s assistant GM ranks and landed on the Seahawks’ Nolan Teasley. He will work with longtime staffer Rob Brzezinski, who had been the team’s interim GM, moving forward.
Upheaval in Buffalo also led to a power shift, with 10th-year GM Brandon Beane elevated to president of football operations following Sean McDermott‘s firing. The Bills originally hired Beane months after McDermott in 2017. The Giants avoided wholesale change by extending fifth-year GM Joe Schoen, though the team’s John Harbaugh hire effectively brought a demotion for the struggling GM.
With Beane, Colts GM Chris Ballard, 49ers GM John Lynch and Chiefs GM Brett Veach being hired in 2017, the NFL now has 11 GMs or owner/GM figures who have been on the job for at least a decade. The Packers’ Brian Gutekunst is closing in on that status, having been extended to start his ninth year as GM.
Teasley’s former boss, John Schneider, received an extension last July. That proved to be a timely move for the Seahawks, who stormed to a Super Bowl LX championship. Schneider, who trails only the Saints’ Mickey Loomis in tenure among pure GMs presently, became the only GM in NFL history to win Super Bowls with two entirely different nuclei (as no Seattle cogs from Super Bowl XLVIII remained by 2025). The Vikings will hope Teasley, whom the Seahawks hired shortly before their 2013 Super Bowl season, can replicate some of Schneider’s success.
Here is how the NFL’s GM ranks look going into the 2026 season:
