Just saw the KAM P.C.

[SFVikeFan]

I found him to be genuine and very likeable. 

While I was high on Poles, they are two totally different types.   Poles is an ascending prospect from the traditional football background.   High floor.  Safe pick. I expect him to do well in Chicago. 

KAM is the swing for the fences, sky-high ceiling type of candidate that could be the radical gamechanger this franchise needs.  Time will tell, but it's clear why the Wilfs were so high on him.  Intellectually curious but also humbled by realizing he doesn't know everything, doesn't let his own ego stop him from asking why's to improve his own football IQ.  


Maybe it's my purple shades but damn I have a really good feeling about him.

[Guest]

Basically the anti Spielman and Zimmer.  Been subjected to that way too long.

[Guest]

It's a breath of fresh air. He is so well-rounded. He is obviously very focused and driven. He is genuine and authentic. He comes to the table as a lifelong learner but extremely approachable and very curious. He brings a lot to the table that some people may not have even thought of. He combines numbers with people and communication. He tied his experience in Wall Street to football with such ease. I love this hire. I am looking forward to seeing things that are built here. 

[Guest]

Sometimes its just football.....not rocket science.  Getting someone with football knowledge is what you need.

[Guest]

Ummm, he's being referred to now as the KAMster...

[Guest]

Well, we Vike Fans deserve a moment of "feel good" if thats what the KAM hiring does for yah...

I watched the entire presser too, just cause he's such a damn unknown (to me). 

Honeymoon time and when that ends? I hope he crushes it and becomes a mainstay here for many years. 

[Guest]

In GM search, Vikings and Bears set up a philosophical battle for years to come

The final step in the Vikings' announced plan for choosing a general manager was hijacked Tuesday night when the Chicago Bears hired away one of the Purple's two finalists on the eve of his scheduled trip to the Twin Cities for a second interview.
Whether that becomes a good thing, a bad thing or an ugly thing will be fascinating to watch unfold as these NFC North rivals do battle in hopes of boasting the better visionary NextGen GM and finally overtaking the division bullies in Green Bay.
Because of the Vikings' transparent search, the public knows a wide, diverse net was cast during the process of replacing Rick Spielman. The public knows that eight candidates were interviewed virtually and that only two finalists — Browns Vice President of Football Operations Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Chiefs Executive Director of Player Personnel Ryan Poles — would be brought to Minnesota for second interviews.
Adofo-Mensah went first on Tuesday. Even he said he wasn't expecting to be hired a day later since the original plan called for Poles to interview on Wednesday.
And what an ideal end to the search that would have been. The Vikings would have kicked the tires on two young, seemingly brilliant minds that come at the job in different ways with totally different backgrounds. Would it be Poles, the 36-year-old Traditional Football Guy, or Adofo-Mensah, the 40-year-old Analytics Guy?
We'll never know how that would have played out for the Vikings if they were given the time to meet Poles in person and woo him. Instead Poles was interviewing Bears coaching candidates Tuesday and Wednesday, and settled on Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus on Thursday.
The perception held by some is the Bears not only got their guy for GM but also dictated the final moves that led to the Vikings' hire. The reality is both teams seem genuinely thrilled by their selections. Who comes out happier in the end will start unfolding eight months from now when all the decisions made by these two start accumulating W's and L's.
So, game on!
Adofo-Mensah, who won Thursday's introductory news conference in a rout, was asked whether the perception of him as a second-fiddle hire adds an extra level of urgency to the Vikings-Bears rivalry.
"If you know me, there's no extra need for competition," he said. "That's how I'm wired. I've heard great things about [Poles]. I think he'll do a great job there. But our job here is to win divisions, make the playoffs, pursue championships. That wouldn't change if he was hired there or not."
How the Vikings and Bears perform in the next few years could, however, determine how two days in late January 2022 will be remembered in Chicago and Minnesota, two places that ended up with two distinctly different GMs.
Poles, 36, played left guard at Boston College. He was undrafted in 2008, tried to make the Bears, failed and returned to Boston College to be a recruiter. A year later, he joined the Chiefs and began the traditional climb from scouting assistant to college scouting coordinator to assistant director of player personnel to executive director of player personnel.
Adofo-Mensah, 40, played basketball at Princeton. He got a master's degree in economics at Stanford. He worked on Wall Street before joining the 49ers' progressive analytics department in 2013. He was their director of football research and development when they reached the Super Bowl in 2019. He then joined the Browns in 2020 as vice president of football operations and right-hand man to Browns General Manager Andrew Berry, another Ivy Leaguer (Harvard) and overseer of the league's most analytics-driven franchise by far.
In Poles, the Bears get a piece of the hottest franchise in football. Poles has learned under Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach and future Hall of Fame coach Andy Reid. The Chiefs have won six straight division championships, two straight AFC titles and a Super Bowl … and they're about to play in their fourth straight home AFC Championship Game.
In Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings get a piece of the 49ers, who also are on the doorstep to Super Bowl LVI, and a Browns team that surprised everyone in 2020 before taking a step back this season.
The optics probably favor the Bears right now. Adofo-Mensah can change that by hiring the right coach and making the offseason moves that bring more success on the field than his predecessor in Minnesota and his newest rival in Chicago.
Game on!
https://www.startribune.com/gm-search-ge...600140355/

[Guest]

Wilfs made real racial progress by hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as GMWhat we usually see from the NFL is lip service to social justice and racial equality. Credit the Wilfs for realizing that the league they grew up watching really needs to change.

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah won the news conference.

The Wilfs won the day.
Introduced as the Minnesota Vikings' new general manager on Thursday, Adofo-Mensah instantly became one of the most impressive and personable sports figures you'll encounter.
As for the Wilfs, owners of the Vikings, they made good on their promise to run an inclusive search and dismiss the kind of traditional thinking that usually leads to a traditional personnel expert becoming GM.
Adofo-Mensah is as nontraditional as any general manager in NFL history. That makes hiring him risky. The Wilfs should be applauded for taking this risk.
They could have played it safe, promoting from within or hiring someone with a deeper resume and more recognizable name.
Instead, they proved open-minded enough to hire a former walk-on college basketball player who worked on Wall Street and planned to become an economics professor before venturing into football.
Adofo-Mensah will be judged on performance and will be subject to the same criticism as any other Vikings general manager. Before the second-guessing and recriminations begin, let's celebrate this day in Vikings history, and thank the Wilfs.
When Kevin Warren was their COO, he was the highest-ranking Black person working on the business side of an NFL team.
Adofo-Mensah becomes the first Black person to work solely as the Vikings' general manager, although Dennis Green played that role for part of his coaching tenure.
Smart money has Adofo-Mensah and the Wilfs hiring a Black coach, whether it be someone like the very-young DeMeco Ryans or more like the very-experienced Jim Caldwell.
What we usually see from the NFL is league-wide lip service to social justice and racial equality, and individual teams mysteriously winding up with Black candidates as runners-up to white candidates when the hirings are announced.
The Rooney Rule has become as ridiculous as end-zone stencils saying "End Racism" in a league that banned Colin Kaepernick for kneeling.
Racial progress isn't a quaint aspiration. It requires action. Either you hire candidates of color, or women, or you don't.
Credit the Wilfs for putting their mores where their mouths are.
Credit them, too, for realizing that the NFL they grew up watching needs to change.
Not every leader should look like Bill Parcells, or rely on a reference from Bill Parcells.
Former GM Rick Spielman was old-school NFL in so many ways, from his scouting and playing background to his uptight, tight-lipped persona. Adofo-Mensah is un-tight.
Adofo-Mensah's resume is an outlier. Everything he knows about football he learned while working for an NFL team.
"A lot of times an impediment to learning is trying to affirm what you already think, not being open-minded," he said on Thursday. "If I'm going to be around great ones, I'm going to listen to everything they say."
Adofo-Mensah cried during the news conference when talking about his mother. He spoke of skipping around his home after his interview with the Vikings. At the news conference and later, when he met informally with the Minnesota media contingent, he displayed a disarming combination of humility, curiosity, intelligence and charm.
He isn't afraid to be viewed as human. That characteristic isn't shared by a lot of NFL bosses.
Spielman damaged his own reputation by being inaccessible, robotic and manipulative. What Adofo-Mensah and the Wilfs seem to understand is that this is one of the most visible jobs in Minnesota. While winning trumps all else, handling this very public position with grace should be important to everyone who cares about the team's brand.
Adofo-Mensah, 40, will have to prove himself, like every other general manager, but should be given a long time to do so.
He inherits a roster filled with highly paid veterans, injury concerns, salary cap restrictions and a problematic quarterback with a problematic salary.
Sunday's NFL conference title games feature three star quarterbacks who were first-round draft picks, and a second-rounder who was acquired by trade.
If Adofo-Mensah can become the first Vikings' GM since Jim Finks to find a long-term solution at the quarterback position, his winning personality will become merely a bonus.


https://www.startribune.com/vikings-wilf...600140319/

[Guest]

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, an Ivy Leaguer with an investment analyst's mind, will call the shots for a pro football franchise. The Vikings need a shake-up, and they're getting just that.


As general manager of the Vikings, Rick Spielman traded picks on draft day as if he worked on Wall Street as a broker.
His replacement literally held that job.
On Wednesday, the Vikings executed a perfect case study in the time-honored tradition of sports organizations hiring the opposite when searching for a new coach or executive. They replaced an old-school football guy with a forward-thinking non-football guy.
Back when it became apparent that Zygi and Mark Wilf needed a change in leadership, the working theory was that the owners might not have the stomach to break free of the insulated cocoon that Spielman provided the New Jersey real estate developers.
Not only did the Wilfs blow that theory to smithereens, Zygi and Mark made like Lewis and Clark with an unconventional hire. They picked a new frontier, for them and the NFL.
The owners entrusted their football operation to the care of someone who began his professional life on Wall Street trading energy derivatives and commodities.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah holds degrees in economics from Princeton and Stanford, which means he quite literally is the smartest guy in the room. His résumé would land him a job at any number of desirable destinations. Wall Street. Silicon Valley. Now the NFL.
This qualifies as a historic hire, a departure from the norm.
Adofo-Mensah, 40, has worked in the NFL only nine years. His background is in research and development, not scouting. Hiring an analytics guru as GM upsets the NFL's ecosystem because the prescribed path to that top leadership position has forever been cookie-cutter — a GM needed to be a football lifer to fully understand the complexities of piecing together a roster as a talent evaluator.
A new door has swung open.
With anything in life, something different can be simultaneously exciting and unnerving. Adofo-Mensah's arrival at such a pivotal moment for the organization is fascinating because his expertise is so unlike traditional hires and this move carries a high risk-reward factor.
That's not a bad thing. Just different. This is what's necessary, a different approach, a shake-up of the whole operation.
The Vikings need an unbiased set of eyes on their roster after years of the same-old, same-old. Adofo-Mensah brings no emotional attachment to personnel or the Vikings' schemes or philosophies. Everything should be a blank canvas for him, starting with the head coach that he helps hire.
His tenure will be indelibly linked and compared to Ryan Poles' time in Chicago since both were finalists for the Vikings' job. Poles, who was the Chiefs' executive director of player personnel, chose the Bears' GM position rather than travel to Minnesota for an in-person interview.
That sparked speculation about whether the Vikings blew their opportunity to hire a candidate with a more traditional football background. Or whether Poles viewed the Bears' roster and overall situation more favorably than the Vikings.
Whatever the reasoning, Poles took the Bears' offer. Poles played football and spent a dozen years with the championship-winning Chiefs, so his résumé certainly looks like a safer choice, but that doesn't mean he was the only qualified person for the job.
The fallout from the firings of Spielman and Mike Zimmer revealed a level of dysfunction inside the organization that was not healthy. People sounded worn out, including players.
We will hear a lot from Vikings leaders in the coming days about collaboration and connectivity and systems because those have become popular buzzwords in corporate America. That's all fine, but the pile of work that Adofo-Mensah inherits is the same as Spielman left it. Difficult decisions and challenges will require savvy problem-solving skills.
How will he handle Kirk Cousins' contract?
Can he find and develop a franchise quarterback, a question that has haunted the organization for years?
How will he manipulate a top-heavy roster that features aging veterans on bloated contracts and a defense that requires an overhaul?
And whom will he hire as head coach, the first major decision on his docket?
Hiring any new general manager represents a new beginning. Adofo-Mensah's background makes this moment even more intriguing. Nobody knows how his tenure will turn out, but trying something bold and entirely different in the pursuit of being better is a risk worth taking.
https://www.startribune.com/vikings-gene...600139941/

[Guest]

Hopefully, his analytics will tell him that Mannion & Dozier have no business being on this roster next year.