Not long after general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was hired by the Vikings in 2022, he met star receiver Justin Jefferson for the first time while walking the hallways of TCO Performance Center. They chopped it up for a while and eventually a messy contract negotiation going on elsewhere in the NFL came up in casual conversation. Innocently, Adofo-Mensah joked with Jefferson, assuring him that their contract negotiations, whenever it went down, would only take a few seconds to complete.
“The confidence of a first month GM,” Adofo-Mensah said with a laugh on Tuesday morning, roughly 24 hours after Jefferson agreed to a historic four-year, $140 million extension. “I’ve learned a lot since then.” No less than 10 feet away sat Jefferson, the face of the franchise, the man of the hour.
He laughed at the punchline while seated alongside his parents John and Elaine and his oldest brother Jordan. Though the contract negotiations took much longer than a few seconds, everybody involved was thrilled with the outcome. “We knew that the deal was going to get done eventually,” Jefferson said.
“It was just all the matter of when it did.” ADVERTISEMENT It was a similar tone from Adofo-Mensah, who had to bite his tongue over the past few months as trade rumors swirled, which was especially frustrating because he knew there wasn’t a shred of truth to any of it. He made his intentions clear from the jump, and he remained focused on finding a solution.
Not once did the Viking.
