Vikings Hire Ex-Bears GM Ryan Pace as Football Adviser to Nolan Teasley
Minnesota adds a former NFC North rival's general manager to its reshaped front office, giving new GM Nolan Teasley a veteran sounding board.
The Minnesota Vikings are bringing a familiar face from inside the division into their building. Ryan Pace, who ran the Chicago Bears as general manager from 2015 through 2021 before spending four seasons in the Atlanta Falcons' personnel department, is joining the Vikings as a football adviser to general manager Nolan Teasley. Pace will not carry the final say on roster decisions, but his hiring gives Teasley a GM-level voice to lean on as Minnesota continues to remake its front office. It is the latest move in an offseason that has already overhauled the people steering the franchise's personnel operation.
What exactly is Ryan Pace's role with the Vikings?
Pace joins Minnesota as a football adviser to general manager Nolan Teasley. The job is built to provide a GM-level sounding board rather than decision-making authority. Teasley still runs the front office and owns the calls on the roster, but Pace gives him a seasoned set of eyes who has sat in the top chair before. That kind of advisory layer has become more common around the league as first-time and newer general managers look to surround themselves with experience. For the Vikings, the appeal is straightforward: Pace has lived the daily grind of running a building and can offer perspective without the friction of overlapping authority.
Why does the hire qualify as pilfering a rival?
Pace spent seven seasons as general manager of the Chicago Bears, Minnesota's longtime NFC North foe, from 2015 through 2021. He then moved to the Atlanta Falcons' personnel department, where he worked for four years before this move. Adding a man who once tried to beat the Vikings twice a year, and who later helped build a conference rival's roster, carries a certain symbolism for a front office trying to gain any edge it can find. The institutional knowledge Pace built across those stops is part of the draw. He has scouted, drafted against, and game-planned around the kind of talent the Vikings now want to evaluate.
How does Pace fit into Minnesota's reshaped front office?
The Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in January and spent months reworking the structure above the roster. They hired Nolan Teasley away from the Seattle Seahawks on May 30 to run the operation, and Teasley has brought additional Seahawks staffers with him, including assistant general manager Trent Kirchner and assistant director of pro scouting Azzaam Kapadia. Longtime cap analyst Rob Brzezinski stayed on as the team's salary cap specialist, preserving continuity in one of the most technical corners of the building. Head coach Kevin O'Connell remains secure and is not part of the front-office turnover. Pace slots into that reshaped group as an added voice rather than a replacement for any current job.
What does this mean for the Vikings heading into training camp?
The front-office reshuffling sets the backdrop for the team's biggest unresolved question: the quarterback competition between J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray, which is expected to carry into training camp. Pace will not settle that battle, and the coaching staff under Kevin O'Connell will drive the evaluation on the field. Still, having an experienced former general manager in the room can matter when a franchise is weighing how to handle a roster built around an uncertain quarterback picture. For Teasley, the early offseason has been about assembling people he trusts before the football decisions get heavier. Adding Pace fits that pattern and gives Minnesota one more layer of counsel as camp approaches.
Players in this story
Sources
- ESPN: Sources - Ex-Bears GM Pace joining rival Vikings in adviser role
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