The Minnesota Vikings waited to make a decision on their defensive coordinator hire until Denver Broncos allowed them to interview Ejiro Evero. Unfortunately, that will not happen.

According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Evero accepted the defensive coordinator position for the Carolina Panthers. Frank Reich gets one of the brightest young defensive minds in the league to run his defense, which has a lot of talent.

For the Vikings, this is a huge blow. They had in theory narrowed their search down to both Evero and Pittsburgh Steelers assistant Brian Flores. With Evero going to Carolina, the only two candidates remaining that the Vikings have interviewed are Flores and Vikings assistant Mike Pettine.

One of the reasons that this is so surprising is that Evero has major connections with both Kwesi Adofo-Mensah (49ers) and Kevin O’Connell (Rams). They were trying to bring him in for an interview before Evero took the Panthers job.

That leaves the Vikings at somewhat of a crossroads. What they will do now will be fascinating.