(Image credit Matt Starkey/Star Tribune)
Written by: Nicholas Mullick
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-mullick-354076184
After just finishing the Ryan Poles article, news came out confirming that the Minnesota Vikings have made their decision on who will be the new GM. So the Minnesota Vikings will be hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as their General Manager. With this announcement, it answered one of the Minnesota Vikings answers of who will replace Rick Spellman as the new General Manager. Well the NFL and Vikings fans finally got their answer on who the new GM will now be so let's take a look into Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah tenure with the San Francisco 49ers
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah started in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers where he was hired as a Manager of Football Research and Development. What this department does well is research about where the areas of improvement are within football operations and begin the process of building and developing statistical models to analyze the game of football. Then in 2017, Kwesi was promoted to the Director of Football Research and Development where he led the decision making. What I also want to mention is that John Lynch was impressed and even publicly gave him a lengthy endorsement. Kwesi would leave the 49ers in 2019.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah tenure with the Cleveland Browns
In 2020 Kwesi decided to accept a position with the Cleveland Browns as the Vice President of Football Operations. What he did was to help input to all roster and strategic football decisions plus oversee the day-to-day operations of the Cleveland Browns. He helped build the Browns with his analytical experience with GM Andrew Barry to a playoff team two years ago. Again I would never have thought I would say 5 years ago but Kwesi Adofo-Mensah had an impact on this team's success with his experience in analytics.
So in total Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has 9 years of experience in the National Football League. Even though he doesn't have as much experience then other candidates, what he does have that stands out is his knowledge in analytics. Analytics is a very important tool to utilize when building a football team that was not utilized too often for many years by the Minnesota Vikings. This is an excellent hire by the Minnesota Vikings as now analytics will be used a lot more than it was when Rick Spellman and Mike Zimmer were around last season. Want to know what hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah shows us. It shows that the Vikings organization is willing to brace to change with this hire. They are not hiring the same characteristics that Spellman had and they are willing to embrace a changing tactic through utilizing analytics in building a football team. Now that the Minnesota Vikings figured out who the General Manager will be, it is time for them to make the next few steps on their rebuild.
But there are more questions that need to be answered.
What will be done with Kirk Cousins?
If the Vikings move on from Kirk Cousins how will the team move on from his awful contract?
Who will replace Kirk Cousins if they decide to move on from him?
Will the Vikings blow it up in the offseason?
If the Vikings don’t blow it up how will they be able to improve the team?
How will the Vikings handle the offseason being 12.1 million dollars under the salary cap?
Who will be coaching the Minnesota Vikings during the 2022 NFL Season?
How will the Vikings restructure the defense?
Can the Vikings rebuild in time and win the division with the Green Bay Packers expected decline?
Will Kwesi Adofo-Mensah be able to maintain his success in analytics with the Minnesota Vikings? (I ask this question as sometimes managers fail to properly utilize analytics well. An example of this, while it is in another league, is with the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes John Chayka. Who improperly and failed to utilize analytics most of the time during his tenure as the manager)
Can the Vikings transition well with this analytical approach in the executive branch?
Will the Vikings be able to draft more consistently than they have the past few years?
I want to end this article as I always do once a position is filled by saying Congratulations to Mr. Adofo-Mensah. I wish him luck during his tenure as the General Manager with the Minnesota Vikings as there is a ton of work that needs to be done with the Vikings after they decided to move on from Rick Spellman and Mike Zimmer.