Kwesi Fired...

ArizonaViking wrote:

Supa, please step away from the ledge, take a deep breath and let's wait and see what the rest of the fallout looks like.

There's no ledge. I've been vindicated from all the shit I took from several on this board who fluffed poetic about this great "outside the box" Wallstreet hire when anybody who's paid attention to how the NFL actually works knew it was a shit hire that would end in disaster. Four years later....I was right, the Wilfs and several on this board were wrong, rinse and repeat..

For the record, I'm all in on McKay or Nolan Teasley from Seattle as our next GM and the sooner they come in and clean house, the better

Chuckf wrote:

He is one of the best Cap Guru money men in the business, lets hope his skill set includes player evaluation.

The thing that catches my attention is this bypasses Grigson.

I'm a little more optimistic about the draft now. Maybe we will hit on 20-25% of our picks instead of 6%

JimmyinSD wrote:

he can barely handle the role he has now,  i think he needs to give up play calling and offensive control and focus on being a HC and game manager,  but now this is added to his plate,  I am expecting a total shit show.

I agree, but having the opportunity to select the players he wants to incorporate into his system has nothing to do with the rest of it. If you watch his reaction to when Kwesi drafted Turner, you know KOC wasn't making calls on which players to select.
The things you mention aren't relevant to the off season.
I would rather KOC, and Flores, have more say over which  players to select than Grigson.

MaroonBells wrote:

Which suggests he didn't already have a big role, which would surprise me if true.

It was a traditional system. The coach would collaberate and make suggestions, but the GM made the decisions.

Vikergirl wrote:
I am listening to this press conference and something feels off to me. KAM is the scapegoat for now but now KOC has no cover whatsoever. It's time to put up or shut up

What feels off? Scapegoat for what? Kwesi sucked. Spent 300 mil on nothing. Didn't listen or take advice. He wasn't qualified to begin with.

Well damn, I skip this board one day and come back to a mushroom cloud.

With his draft record I'm not going to complain about his exit.  My question is: If we still have the same scouting department and Grigson, will changing the GM help the draft any? 

Don't anyone DARE say "It can't ..." (you know the rest but keep your damn mouths shut  :P )

supafreak84 wrote:

There's no ledge. I've been vindicated from all the shit I took from several on this board who fluffed poetic about this great "outside the box" Wallstreet hire when anybody who's paid attention to how the NFL actually works knew it was a shit hire that would end in disaster. Four years later....I was right, the Wilfs and several on this board were wrong, rinse and repeat..

For the record, I'm all in on McKay or Nolan Teasley from Seattle as our next GM and the sooner they come in and clean house, the better

A lot of us on this forum believed this day would eventually come as we also had the disappointments of the previous drafts and free agent signings.  I guess we weren't as vocal and critical of the situation to the extreme you sometimes take it. But none the less, we felt changes needed to happen to right this viking ship.
This is not a knock on you, everyone expresses their disappointments in different ways.

hogjowlsjohnny wrote:

It was a traditional system. The coach would collaberate and make suggestions, but the GM made the decisions.

Everything's based on the team's draft board, which is typically a collaborative effort. But no one's ever going to convince me that KOC had nothing to do with the scouting and ultimate selection of JJ McCarthy. The idea that Kwesi went rogue on that pick is absurd.

StickierBuns wrote:

Totally agree. It is absurd. I think when its all said and done, the truth will be KOC was/is a big JJM fan. But there's some nuance to that along the way.

p.s. There's an account on X called CrakRok.....he shoots down a lot of bullshit rumors and the few times he chimes in with inside info before the fact, he's been spot on...and not just the NFL. He says that JJ is going to be QB1 in 2026 and KOC is behind him. Take it for what its worth.

I think the same, and the games after his return certainly showed progress. He needs to beef up, find ways to take less abuse, and get the mechanics improving.

As his teammates have called out his "dawg" tendencies, I believe he'll attack this offseason fiercely. That's good, because he'll need to.

I'm not going to mourn Kwesi's departure, but I will remain curious over which players/approaches were really in him vs collaborative efforts. I almost don't care about the Sam thing, really, because he wasn't gonna stay for just another year...and we were going to play the highest-drafted QB in our history before too long.

Regardless what happens next weekend, the people wailing over Sam need to recognize that...and get the f*** over it.

My hope is that the FO and KOC/Flores are going to work VERY hard to make this an impressive draft and offseason, get the Kwesi news out of the spotlight by simply making good moves/decisions, and utilize all the brain power they can get to make the coming season among our best. We should still have the talent, but everyone from KOC to JJM to the janitorial staff needs to be aware that everyone's on the clock.

MAD GAINZ wrote:

This makes sense.  I heard in the off-season that KOC was willing to put his career on the line for Sam Darnold running it back with us to give JJ McCarthy more time after missing all his rookie season. KOC was overruled since the FO wanted to proceed with a QB on a rookie contract.

As far as tensions go...  Grigson is an alpha but not a great talent evaluator IMO.  I'm sure his style and Kwesi clashed.  Then look at the relationship between Assistant HC Pettine and Flores.  Oil and water.  I'm sure these relationships are what insiders are referring to with "tension" in the organization.

^^^

I dont know how plugged in the sports is locally in MN? But this is what they were reporting last night...

No love lost between KAM and KOC and the coach wanted to re-sign Darnold and give JJM more time to incubate. 

I'm beginning to suspect strongly that both of these were true.

RS_Express wrote:
Well damn, I skip this board one day and come back to a mushroom cloud.

With his draft record I'm not going to complain about his exit.  My question is: If we still have the same scouting department and Grigson, will changing the GM help the draft any? 

Don't anyone DARE say "It can't ..." (you know the rest but keep your damn mouths shut  :P )

Grigson is Dead Man Walking...If he wasn't he'd be running the draft this year and not Brez

I had always thought KOC since he is the most qualified to evaluate QBs made the call on the QB decision. If Kwesi overrode his evaluation, I could see that creating tension and leading up to this.

Wilfs are ultimately to blame, this is all on them for hiring someone who had no qualifications for the position. The fact that it took Darnold to make the Super Bowl for it to finally get tho this point is another sign of how dysfunctional this organization is.

I do not think KOC likes JJM, there often seemed to be some frustrations from some of his comments about his mechanics and it really spilled over when JJM did the defiant TD dance well before the end zone and then openly spoke about going against his coaches wishes. I fully expect someone else to be starting opening day.

StickierBuns wrote:

Totally agree. It is absurd. I think when its all said and done, the truth will be KOC was/is a big JJM fan. But there's some nuance to that along the way.

p.s. There's an account on X called CrakRok.....he shoots down a lot of bullshit rumors and the few times he chimes in with inside info before the fact, he's been spot on...and not just the NFL. He says that JJ is going to be QB1 in 2026 and KOC is behind him. Take it for what its worth.

I wouldn't doubt that at this point...But I'm not sure thats where KOC was last year at this time. Makes perfect sense to me he'd want to find a way to run it back with Darnold one more year. He knew McCarthy wasn't ready yet is my guess. 

I'm believing more and more there was no luv lost between KAM/KOC, the QB was probably just the last straw and tip of that spear.

StickierBuns wrote:

But they would have had to make a major commitment to Darnold from a length of contract perspective....and why would Minnesota sign him to a 3 year deal? And why would Darnold take anything less? That's why that line of thinking from a rumor perspective doesn't wash with me.
No way Uncle Sammy was taking a one year deal after the season he had. They wanted to give JJ 3 more years to 'incubate', lol? Makes no sense IMO.

They could have tagged him?

Not the Vikings way as it harms their brand with players and agents. But it could have been a lever to use.

Canthony wrote:

What feels off? Scapegoat for what? Kwesi sucked. Spent 300 mil on nothing. Didn't listen or take advice. He wasn't qualified to begin with.

I am not saying he gets a pass, all I am saying is that he is not the only issue. They are dumping everything on him to cover themselves. The Wilfs ultimately agreed to the decisions, they signed off on it. The presser is damage control for now. But there should be a bigger eye on KOC now. I also wonder how BFlo fits in to the draft now. I bet he gets more of a say. Can't keep making chicken salad out of chicken shit.

MaroonBells wrote:

Everything's based on the team's draft board, which is typically a collaborative effort. But no one's ever going to convince me that KOC had nothing to do with the scouting and ultimate selection of JJ McCarthy. The idea that Kwesi went rogue on that pick is absurd.

How do you interpret this,

 "It was a traditional system. The coach would collaberate and make suggestions, but the GM made the decisions."

 into, he went Rouge?
How does the word collaborate exclude KOC from the the selection of JJ?
The final decision and responsibility was made by the GM and the reason he was fired had as much to do with other draft choices and issues than the JJ decision alone.

Kevin SeifertJan 30, 2026, 07:28 PM ET

EAGAN, Minn. -- In the summer of 2024, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was preparing for his third season as the Minnesota Vikings' general manager. A reporter asked him to spell out the ways he had improved in his role since the team hired him in January 2022.

First and foremost, Adofo-Mensah said, he had learned the "dichotomy ... between leader and worker" as a general manager.

"It's something you just kind of grow and evolve," he said. "You get to this job by being a good worker. A lot of things are needed from a leadership standpoint, just outside of that role, that I've had to grow and adjust and adapt to. So, that's something I've definitely learned a lot through."

On the field, Adofo-Mensah said, "You just learn about a lot of this through trial by fire."

The former analytics staffer with the 49ers and Browns added: "A lot of things happen in theory when you're behind an Excel spreadsheet or a computer and you get to the job and you see the actual implementation of these things, and just seeing what that growth in development of a player looks like or different things like that, room dynamics. Just the experience of making these decisions, seeing them up close, seeing the actual implementation of them has been invaluable to me in my first two years."

The response was honest, thoughtful and decidedly worrisome.

Adofo-Mensah had been one of the least experienced general manager hires in recent NFL history, having never played or coached football before taking an entry-level analytics job with the 49ers in 2013. And now, two years in, he was acknowledging that the concerns about his inexperience -- that he wasn't equipped to lead a front office, that his analytics background left him short on actual football instincts and that he was still learning the difference between theory and reality -- had come true.

It was impossible not to think back to that moment as a precursor to the news the Vikings announced Friday. In a move that was more surprising for its timing than its substance, the Wilfs fired Adofo-Mensah and replaced him temporarily with Rob Brzezinski, their longtime executive vice president of football operations, through the 2026 draft.

Owner Mark Wilf said the decision was not based on any particular decision or reason but "four years of where we've been."

There had been public indications of Adofo-Mensah's inexperience throughout his tenure, despite the NFL's fifth-best regular-season winning percentage during that time (.632). They included a disastrous first draft in 2022 and the ill-fated series of quarterback decisions that led Sam Darnold to depart last spring (he has since led the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl) and J.J. McCarthy to assume the starting role before he was ready.

All told, the Vikings have gotten less production out of Adofo-Mensah's four drafts (172 starts) than all but one NFL team. For perspective, the average NFL team has received 368 starts from players drafted over that period.

There were also quieter indications behind the scenes.

Team and league sources thought that Adofo-Mensah's answer about leadership in 2024 came after the Wilfs spoke to him about being more accessible to the people who worked for him. The Wilfs believed he spent more time in his office, working through statistical models and long-range planning, and not enough time circulating among staffers.

Internally, Adofo-Mensah also shouldered much of the blame this past season for failing to pair McCarthy with a veteran quarterback who could hedge against injury or ineffectiveness. Instead, McCarthy produced one of the NFL's worst six-game starts to a career in the past decade, an outcome the Vikings could do little about after Adofo-Mensah failed to finalize negotiations with free agent Daniel Jones and instead traded for veteran Sam Howell to back up McCarthy. The Vikings replaced Howell with Carson Wentz shortly before the season began, at coach Kevin O'Connell's urging.

Adofo-Mensah's unique background made him an oddity among NFL general managers, something the Wilfs originally believed would be an attribute as they sought to change their culture following the long partnership between former general manager Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer. Adofo-Mensah didn't always work the traditional hours of a football grinder, sources said, but he talked often about finding unusual times of the day to get work done -- especially after his two children were born.

Ultimately, though, Adofo-Mensah's approach contributed to a level of detachment from the Vikings' otherwise traditional coaching staff. Honest sometimes to a fault, Adofo-Mensah once credited O'Connell with teaching him the importance of a tight end in an NFL offense prior to acquiring T.J. Hockenson in a trade with the Detroit Lions.

As it would in many organizations, the level of Adofo-Mensah's inexperience drew concern. Multiple sources said that defensive coordinator Brian Flores' unusual decision to let his contract lapse, before signing a new deal that will pay him more than $6 million per season, was based in part on his unease with the direction of the front office. When asked last month if he wanted to remain with the Vikings, Flores noted that he loved working for the Wilfs and with O'Connell, and loved living in Minnesota, but did not mention Adofo-Mensah.

Adofo-Mensah is hardly the only one to blame for a situation that will leave the Vikings in a leadership holding pattern until after the late-April NFL draft. The Wilfs rushed to sign O'Connell to a contract extension after the 2024 season but did not agree to terms with Adofo-Mensah -- who, like O'Connell, was entering the final year of his existing deal -- until nearly five months later.

That discrepancy led to obvious questions about Adofo-Mensah's standing with ownership, and the NFL was awash in rumors that the Wilfs would fire him after the season. The team had been eliminated from the playoffs on Dec. 14, giving ownership one month before the end of the season to determine what, if any, accountability they would seek.

Instead, they allowed him to work another four weeks. Adofo-Mensah gave his usual end-of-season news conference on Jan. 13, emphasizing on multiple occasions that he had final authority on roster decisions, and spent this week in Mobile, Alabama, scouting Senior Bowl practices.

But after conducting their end-of-season meetings with key personnel, the Wilfs gathered this week and decided that "we did not feel comfortable going forward into this offseason" with the existing structure, Mark Wilf said.

It seems almost certain that the Vikings will seek out an experienced executive to fill the permanent role, whether it is Brzezinski or someone from outside the organization.

The Wilfs took a big, ambitious swing by hiring Adofo-Mensah, who knew better than anyone that most organizations wouldn't have considered a candidate of his background. Their swing missed, and Friday's move brought their hopes to an end.

ESPN senior national NFL reporter Jeremy Fowler contributed to this report.

The beat-up Vikings were limping along at 4-8 after a shutout loss in which they were forced to start an undrafted rookie at quarterback opposite Sam Darnold at Seattle. They were a week away from being eliminated from the playoff chase with four games remaining when I asked Kevin O’Connell for the No. 1 key to playoff consistency, something that was about to stiffarm the reigning NFL Coach of the Year for the second time in his four seasons as a head coach.

His answer below seemed a little then, and more now, like a subtle harbinger of what came Jan. 30: the firing of General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

“It’s simple things sometimes. The depth,” O’Connell said during a news conference Dec. 3. “The players who are going to be stepping in, have they been in your system? Are they that true next man up? Or are they players who maybe are the next man up just because of the necessity to acquire a player or whatever it is.”

This assessment of what a coach needs for playoff consistency went deeper than depth at quarterback or any single misstep Adofo-Mensah made.

At that moment, O’Connell had on his active roster only four of the team’s 27 draft picks from 2021 to ’23: Rick Spielman’s last draft (one of 11) and Adofo-Mensah’s first two (three of 16). Only two were starters, one from Spielman (Christian Darrisaw) and one from Adofo-Mensah (Jordan Addison).

At that same moment over in Green Bay, the Packers had a whopping 18 of 33 picks remaining from those drafts. Twelve of them starters. Perhaps fittingly, on the same day Adofo-Mensah was fired, Packers GM Brian Gutekunst was among those in the Packers’ braintrust receiving contract extensions.

In Detroit, the Lions had 13 of 23 remaining, 11 of them starters, four of them first-team All-Pros, and Jameson Williams. Williams, of course, is the receiver Adofo-Mensah handed to the Lions. As rookie GM, he traded the 12th pick, dropped 20 spots and selected Lewis Cine in what was Adofo-Mensah’s first big move and the colossal mistake for which the unorthodox, analytics-based GM will live on in infamy.

These numbers when stacked against division opponents and O’Connell’s plea for more depth — subtle publicly, understandably more forceful behind the scenes — are really all that’s needed to explain why the Vikings didn’t want Adofo-Mensah near another draft board. That and Adofo-Mensah spending hundreds of millions of dollars on old free agents in last year’s attempt to hide poor drafting.

The only puzzling part is why this firing wasn’t done a month or two ago. Owner Mark Wilf said ownership made its decision during its annual postseason review. He said no one, O’Connell included, called for Kwesi’s firing.

O’Connell didn’t need to. The numbers speak for themselves.

The young draft picks entering their prime in Years 3-5 were almost nonexistent. And Adofo-Mensah’s last two drafts saw only two of 12 picks become primary starters in 2025: left guard Donovan Jackson and quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who has missed 25 of 35 games because of injury and left early because of injury in five of the 10 games he did play.

Wilf insisted multiple times in trying to explain the firing that it wasn’t because of a single decision at quarterback. It only looks that way since last year’s starting quarterback, Darnold, will be playing in Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8.

Wilf called it a “body of work.” And that makes sense. From Adofo-Mensah’s first big move in the first round in 2022 to last August when he gifted Carolina fourth- and fifth-round picks for Adam Thielen to fill a three-game need as Addison served a suspension, the body of work has been lacking.

Ironically, working for a franchise whose kicking woes are infamous and numerous, Adofo-Mensah’s finest move was drafting kicker Will Reichard in the sixth round in 2024.

While many a Vikings team would have begged for Reichard’s big leg and icy veins, a first-team All-Pro kicker wasn’t nearly enough to save Adofo-Mensah’s job.

STRIB

hogjowlsjohnny wrote:
I agree, but having the opportunity to select the players he wants to incorporate into his system has nothing to do with the rest of it. If you watch his reaction to when Kwesi drafted Turner, you know KOC wasn't making calls on which players to select. The things you mention aren't relevant to the off season. I would rather KOC, and Flores, have more say over which  players to select than Grigson.

It was a traditional system. The coach would collaberate and make suggestions, but the GM made the decisions.

The season and offseason aren't separate from one another,  coaches have duties all year long just as GMs and front office people do.  KOC has a lot of personal growth to focus on as a coach,  shouldnt be looking for more roles when he still struggles with his primary objectives.

the toll for the draft whiffs still has 2-3 years left to be paid.

Just saying it's hard to get out of this spiral.

Only anecdote is to hit in
draft picks.

Vikings can't have a bad draft again in 2026, that's why kwesi got canned.

supafreak84 wrote:
And it's ok, ya'll can say I was right about Kwesi

Yes you were, and I appreciated your consistency, and the reasoning of his lack of experience re: drafts.

Interesting tidbit for you, … one of KAM’s biggest “endorsers” for the Viking GM gig was none other than Jim Harbaugh who worked with KAM in Frisco.   Harbaugh called him a “shining star”.

https://kfan.iheart.com/content/2022-02-04-jim-harbaugh-says-vikings-gm-kwesi-adofo-mensah-is-a-shining-star/

Knowing your regard for Harbaugh, ;)

Canthony wrote:

What feels off? Scapegoat for what? Kwesi sucked. Spent 300 mil on nothing. Didn't listen or take advice. He wasn't qualified to begin with.

I’m no special pleader for KAM (I reflexively distrust anyone with a hyphenated last name, lol)…
….however KAM went 43-25 ( 0.63) win percentage in his 4 yrs. The Vikings all time win percentage is 0.55.

savannahskol wrote:

Yes you were, and I appreciated your consistency, and the reasoning of his lack of experience re: drafts.

Interesting tidbit for you, … one of KAM’s biggest “endorsers” for the Viking GM gig was none other than Jim Harbaugh who worked with KAM in Frisco.   Harbaugh called him a “shining star”.

https://kfan.iheart.com/content/2022-02-04-jim-harbaugh-says-vikings-gm-kwesi-adofo-mensah-is-a-shining-star/

Knowing your regard for Harbaugh, ;)

I’m no special pleader for KAM (I reflexively distrust anyone with a hyphenated last name, lol)…
….however KAM went 43-25 ( 0.63) win percentage in his 4 yrs. The Vikings all time win percentage is 0.55.

I'd give more credit to the coaching staff with regard to our win percentage. If KOC wasn't such a good HC and we didn't have Flores directing our D, we don't win that many games with someone else leading the team.

I just laugh at fans bashing KOC like he sucks at his job... get real.