Aaron Rodgers joined the Pittsburgh Steelers ahead of the 2025 NFL season following his long career with the Green Bay Packers and a short stay with the New York Jets. Despite never having played for the Minnesota Vikings, he apparently played a role in their general manager, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, getting fired recently. A recent report outlined how he influenced their decision.
How Did Aaron Rodgers Play a Role in the Vikings Firing Kwesi Adofo-Mensah?
Adofo-Mensah was fired from his role as the Vikings general manager following a disappointing 2025 NFL season. They impressively finished with a 14-3 record and made the playoffs last year, but fell to 9-8 this season and missed out on the postseason.
Dianna Russini and Alex Lewis recently reported on the situation for The Athletic and outlined some of the reasons why they decided to fire him. Rodgers’ name was mentioned specifically, despite him never playing for Minnesota.
“Misses in the NFL Draft played a large role in this decision. Only one of the 10 picks in Adofo-Mensah’s first draft became a full-time starter, and only two remain with the team.”
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“The team also failed to secure Daniel Jones as McCarthy’s backup, leading to the acquisition of Sam Howell, who struggled during training camp and was later traded. The team also opted against signing future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers, who showed interest in playing for the Vikings on a below-market-value salary,” reported Russini and Lewis.
The quarterback position was a disaster for the Vikings this season as J.J. McCarthy failed to live up to his expectations. Making the situation much worse was that Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold both had excellent seasons. They were both on their roster last year, but the franchise decided to let both of them walk in favor of sticking with McCarthy.
They expanded the seemingly botched approach to the position by pointing out that Rodgers had an interest in joining the Vikings before ultimately landing with the Steelers. His first season in Pittsburgh resulted in an AFC North division title and a trip to the playoffs. Minnesota instead gambled on McCarthy, and the early returns suggest that they picked the wrong quarterback.
McCarthy finished just 37th among 48 qualified quarterbacks in PFSN’s QB Impact Metric for the 2025 season. Rodgers wasn’t spectacular, finishing 29th, but Darnold and Jones both finished inside the top 15. They had a strong chance of making the playoffs with any of those three options, but passing on all of them apparently contributed to Adofo-Mensah getting fired.
