A system and method provides adaptive digital front end control of an incoming radio frequency (RF) signal to identify RF characteristics in that signal, such as interference or desired data signals and adaptively control digital filter elements to selectively tune only portions of the RF signal to produce a filtered output signal, on a per cycle basis, prior to communicating the RF signal to an underlying wireless communication device, such as a base station in cellular network, cellular phone, wireless router base station, cognitive radio, or other wireless communication device. Each digital filter element may be tuned in frequency and bandwidth of operation and collectively the elements form an adaptive filter stage with elements configurable into both bandpass and bandstop filters for cascaded operation.