Adofo-Mensah Hired As New General Manager of the Minnesota Vikings

(KDLM) – The Minnesota Vikings have finalized a deal with Cleveland Browns VP of Football Operations Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to be their new general manager, according to a report by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) January 26, 2022

“The Adofo-Mensah hire gives the Vikings something on the complete other end of the spectrum from what Rick Speilman brought to the job,” Arif Hasan of The Athletic told KDLM on Wednesday. “Somebody who is a little more deeply invested in using data, evidence, and analytics instead of using his background as a scout.”

Cameron Wolfe of the NFL Network reports that the deal with Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings is a four-year deal worth $12 million, officially starting the Minnesota Moneyball era of Vikings football.

“It’s not as clean as using data in baseball and it’s not quite as obvious as when you have a high-level football player versus a high-level baseball player when the analytics point out which player could be a little bit of a steal,” says Hasan. “But no matter what, even an analytics-focused GM like what we expect Adofo-Mensah to be is going to have to rely on his scouting department quite a bit in order to set the base-level of expectations while at the same time using their analytical evidence and data in order to inform their decision from there. The basics are still going to be traditional football methods, which I don’t think is always necessarily the case when it comes to baseball. I do think that we’re going to find instances of unusual decisions or decision making that don’t make sense from a traditional football perspective, but when viewed through the lens of somebody who is a little more invested in data-based football decision making might make a little more sense.”

Adofo-Mensah spent the last two seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ vice president of football operations, working under GM Andrew Berry. Prior to his time in Cleveland, Adofo-Mensah worked for the San Francisco 49ers from 2013 to 2019. Two decisions loom over Adofo-Mensah right away: hiring the tenth head coach in Vikings history, and deciding whether or not Kirk Cousins has a part in his vision for the future.

“One of the most difficult decisions facing Adofo-Mensah right away will be to figure out what to do with Kirk Cousins,” Hasan says. “What they do there will kind of define the approach for the rest of the roster. If they decide to move on from Cousins, I think that you are committing to a rebuild and then I think it becomes easier to make decisions on how to fix the defense. It doesn’t become something that you have to solve right away. You can add talented players as you find them. If they do decide to keep Cousins, they’re invested in the season’s outcome and think they have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs. That means they need to find immediate solutions on defense. Your primary starters at cornerback (Patrick Peterson and Mackenzie Alexander) could leave via free agency. Bashaud Breeland got cut midway through the season and Cam Dantzler took his place. You could lose Anthony Barr, you could potentially lose Xavier Woods at safety, you still need to add a defensive end opposite Danielle Hunter. There are a lot of bodies needed on defense. A lot of those could be addressed through the draft. You could try and get some of those players through free agency, but that’s going to be tough because the Vikings are underwater when it comes to the cap. There are going to be a series of difficult decisions that the Vikings need to make.”

Adofo-Mensah, 40, succeeds Rick Spielman, who was fired by the Vikings on January 10th along with longtime head coach Mike Zimmer.

Arif Hasan of The Athletic has covered the Minnesota Vikings for the last seven years and has been featured in the Star Tribune, the LA Times, the International Business Times, Forbes, and MSNBC. He joined Zeke Fuhrman on the KDLM Sports Wrap on Wednesday morning to talk about the Adofo-Mensah hire.

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