Dianna Russini downplays notion ex-Vikings GM taking paternity leave contributed to ouster

The Minnesota Vikings made one of the stranger moves of the young NFL offseason last week when they fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah nearly a month after their last game.

Reporters raced to explain why Minnesota would let go of its highly regarded GM for four years. While Adofo-Mensah oversaw two 13-plus win seasons, he also bears the blame for letting go of quarterback Sam Darnold, who is about to start Super Bowl LX for Seattle, in favor of an underperforming first-round pick in J.J. McCarthy.

As more information trickled out, it became clear that Adofo-Mensah had been in the hot seat for a while. The analytics-driven former Wall Street trader clearly had detractors within the Vikings and around the NFL.

However, one smaller rumor circulated online, leading some to wonder whether Adofo-Mensah’s commitment to his family ultimately came at the expense of his professional future in Minnesota.

Now, longtime NFL insider Dianna Russini is writing that while rare, Adofo-Mensah’s decision to take paternity leave during the 2023 offseason was not in fact a driving reason the Vikings fired him.

Apparently, the GM missed “about two weeks” of training camp that summer while working remotely, according to Russini and The Athletic’s Vikings beat reporter, Alec Lewis. The decision “offered more evidence that Adofo-Mensah approached the work-life component of the role differently from many of his NFL peers,” Russini wrote.

There’s been a lot of conversation around Kwesi Adofo-Mensah taking paternity leave, largely because it’s still rare in the NFL.

But it’s important to note that the Minnesota Vikings supported him through the entire process and did not hold it against him in any way.

This was a… pic.twitter.com/b5D6V8svBI

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 1, 2026

Russini added that Adofo-Mensah’s use of the paternity leave benefit was met with “disbelief” around the league, given that it is “uncommon,” according to Russini, for players, coaches, or executives to take time away from the team for the birth of their children. Adofo-Mensah committed to his family that he would take leave when the child was born before he ever took the Vikings job, per The Athletic.

“This was a storyline outside of the building, not inside it,” Russini added on X.

On the opposite side, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported recently that there was an underlying “tension” between Adofo-Mensah and highly regarded head coach Kevin O’Connell.

What is interesting about the fallout from Adofo-Mensah’s axing is that prior to Russini’s reporting, the whispers about the 2023 paternity leave incident were nothing more than scuttlebutt. No reputable reporter was listing it as a major reason for the Vikings’ move. The story appears to have been a combination of an industry grapevine story and a fan rumor, with Russini vaulting it to mainstream news at the same time that she dispelled it.