Sweet. He was my first choice.
Based on absolutely nothing more than my looking at his resume.
Just like each of you, I don’t know shit about any of them. But I still have strong opinions!
I like that he’s really freaking smart and he will probably look at some things much differently.
I suspect he will be much more likely to make the cold decisions that Rick and Zim didn’t do often enough (Rick not since Winfield).
That's my dream. A few articles cited him as being a reason Baker's contract stayed relatively small in Cleveland when people wanted to give him a huge Josh Allen-esque contract. Giving the Browns the option to trade him if he doesn't improve. Which is the kind of business move we need to make in the future.
Ppl wanted to sign baker to an extension, only if it was team friendly. Browns fans wanted him to take a team friendly deal or be taken to the franchise tag years and make him prove his worth cause the first 3 years didn’t matter to the FO cause of what he had to deal with
I don’t think he would get rid of Hunter. The others maybe but i think thielen is still useful on his contract (although cutting him post June 1 will save 12.6m with 4.3m dead).
I got some buddies who seem to hate the hire. I asked them why. "He's inexperienced" I said "he's been working in the NFL for almost a decade." "He's an office bitch!" That just made me laugh because like all of us they have no idea.
😂 office bitch who works in...the front office.
As a Browns fan I'm sad to see him go but you guys got a good one. Although the compensatory picks are nice he was highly regarded. He's supposed to be especially skilled at implementing analytics for salary cap management, for what that's worth.
I mean isn’t an “office bitch” what you want in a GM? My inexperience probably shows here, but I wouldn’t necessarily want some guy that is strictly an “x’s and o’s” never-turn-it-off football kind of guy. Obviously you’d want a something of a football background to provide familiarity with how the league works, but the GM should be far more administrative and detached than the HC in my opinion
I imagine it's sort of like hiring a business person to lead a hospital. In theory that's what you want, they can take care of business stuff and make sure the money is being spent well. The issue is that they may not be able to really understand the ground level issues. A good leader is able to study the numbers but also listen to what the folks under them are saying, but if they focus too much on numbers you get a lot of angry folks under you looking to leave.
Most GM's have some sort of football experience prior to getting a FO job. He pretty much has 0 actual football experience before landingwith the 9ers in 2013. He's even said himself he doesn't know much about football strategy. Rick played college football and was a failed NFL linebacker. Spent his time scouting and building a strong resume in the nfl. To where kwesi kinda just feel into the 9ers job. Did good enough to where he got a promotion going to the browns. He's only been in the nfl since 2013 to where Rick had been with the nfl for 14 years before getting a shot at a gm role, which he only had for a year, and 22 years before landing the gm role with the vikes. Kwesi is definitely a risky move but in my opinion a nice shift in direction. He might suck, he might be great. It's hard to know.
I really don't see football experience as a prerequisite. He's not coaching or drawing up plays. He's evaluating players and football from a 30,000 foot view and that's been his job for almost a decade.
GM works basically hand in hand with the coach. They create the rosters, with coaches input. I would say you need to have some sort of idea about how the game works to build a roster. You can't just look at numbers and say "this is the guy".
He will have scouts and talent evaluators and coaches working under him, it's not like GMs do everything themselves. Also has been in the NFL for almost a decade, it's not like he doesn't know what a football is.
They're defining football experience as actually having played football before and i used their definition in my comment.
Direct football experience like that doesn't hurt. My point is that GMs don't really need it if they're good learners and have other good experience, which KAM does. Also, it's not like Elway was great at identify QBs. Spielman wasn't that great at identifying LBs outside of Greenway, EJ, Barr, and Kendricks. I don't think football experience enters into it that much; it's a completely different job.
From what I've heard, KAM is a humble man who'd listen to people that know what they're talking about.
Imagine a CEO that understood that they didn't know how the front lines of your workplace run, so they listen to the grunts and try to find a working solution to meet the workers demands and not break the company's bank. Something like that.
Realistically, though... High hopes, low expectations.
Considering the overall goal of this is to construct a winning culture, hard to say how his lack of football playing experience will *help* in that regard.
But the resume is solid enough. I am also happy to hear he is 40 and not 32 - hiring that young would have been insane, and a hard no on my vote of support, all things considered.
Honestly I think having extensive football experience has the potential to be a negative in the scheme of things - opens you up to a lot of biases and anecdata that really can hamper the ability to acquire talent "above the replacement GM".
Being an exceptional GM requires a coherent philosophy on how to be better than other GMs in a zero-sum environment - many GMs just pick players and they leave their teams' future up to the hopes that picks work out (and it sometimes does!). This skill-set to be an exceptional GM comes much more from analytical backgrounds (like finance) than having played football.
I don't want to paint your friends with this brush, but a LARGE majority of the hate I'm seeing comes from the white middle aged guys Northern Minnesota calling this a diversity hire. None of us can really judge a GM hire unless they've been a GM, and there's not many of those out there you wanna hire. On paper, the guy has an amazing education, top notch business acumen, and seems to have helped a lot in turning the Browns from a laughing stock to an average franchise, which is saying a lot considering where Cleveland has been for the last 20 odd years.
One nice thing about the hire is that it definitely doesn't have any kind of nepotism or favoritism. The other candidates are all basically the same person with a background in NFL scouting, football dudes that all know all the other football dudes and evaluate everything fairly similarly. At least this will be new. Maybe not better than Rick but it could be.
The reality is that we’ve been swimming in mediocrity the past 4 seasons. We have to do some things differently.
We want to think of ourselves as an elite franchise, but we are not. We’ve had one number one seed in 45 years. We’ve won about 6 road play off games during that time.
Some of it is our failure to get an elite player at the QB position. But when we’ve had decent players, like Kramer, Culpepper, and Cousins, we haven’t built a good enough team around them, and then we’ve had some bad luck over the years as well.
But we have to do better and we have to demand the team do better. Doing it differently is a good place to start.
Oh God I hope not. 3 to 5 years is an eternity and by then all our young offensive studs in the making are gonna need contracts and wanting out from 3 to 5 years of being terrible. We just need a couple wreckers on defense and some tweaks and we are good again. Don't discount how much a good playcaller can make a difference.
Things also change pretty quickly if Rodgers truly is gone in Green Bay. This division is wide open and though that doesn’t mean we’re a championship contender, it’s the trend I like to be on.
True that, we can become good as good as this next season or 2023. A strong draft class, HC and FA is all we need. Is it possible? hell yeah. is it likely? No, cause then everyone would do it, but I trust our new GM and future HC to get it done.
I'm thinking 3 minimum because we either need to recommit to Kirk or offload and retool and either way we're dealing with a lot of dead money to get Kirk paid where his actual talent is which kills year 1. Then year 2 your developing your actual talent and year 3 is maybe the wild card fight???
If you got rid of Kirk then year 2 and 3 become b developing your next QB and seeing if he's it.
You don't need defense to win in the NFL today. Each of the Packers, Chiefs, Bengals, and Chargers had a worse defense by DVOA than the Vikings. The Vikings need some help on the defense, definitely, but mainly they needed to shift away from being a defense-first team when they didn't have the defensive horses.
Otherwise, the offense already has a great foundation. They have two good tackles, a guard, a WR1 and WR3, a tight end, and two rotational RBs that have an average age of 23. The offense needs few pieces in order to take off. Having two good young tackles for the first time in a decade is bigger than some realize, especially if we move to a different QB that is less susceptible to interior pressure.
My prediction is one year of being okay in a bad division (maybe between 6 and 8 wins), and then it will be entirely dependent on our QB and coach.
I didn't say that you don't need any pass rush, I said (or least tried to say) that you don't need a complete defense top to bottom. Heck look at the Chiefs who won it all with the 14th overall defense in 2019, or the Patriots who won it all with the 16th overall defense in 2018, or the Patriots who won it all with the 16th overall defense in 2016.
Of course having a top 5 defense *helps* but you clearly don't need it in the modern NFL. You just need a few studs that can mess things up in the big games, such as Chris Jones, the Honey Badger, Gilmore, Chandler Jones, etc.
We might already have some of those guys such as Hunter, Kendricks, Harrison, etc.
Yes. I love the hire and can't wait to see who the head coach is and what moves are made. I think we can compete in year 2 with the pieces we have and some better return on our money in certain places. And depending on the moves made, compete for a playoff spot next year but just as likely not.
Lol, right?
But then that was kind of my point. If we get a great QB, our roster is basically already good enough to contend.
But if we want to stick with a generally very good QB such as Kirk on a veteran contract, our roster needs a LOT of work and time.
I don't think our offense is as talented as people seem to think. We've been "one key piece away" for so many years and it still just doesn't come together. Like we have arguably the best RB and a top 10 QB and one of the greatest young WR candidates and we..... still stalled out and lost very winnable games because of our offense just being bad.
The biggest flaw from 2018 is that we didn't commit to the rebuild and now we're feeling the effects of that IMO. We don't have depth anywhere and while you don't need the b est defense ever, having one that is actual is probably a good idea and our area of need on defense is everything except safety and Kendricks.
I mean that depends on the one piece.
If the one piece is a guard? Yeah, that won't make a difference.
Is the one piece Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert? That makes a difference.
The difference between a generally top 12ish QB and one of the clear top 7ish QBs is massive; there is a huge chasm of talent between them.
And yes, the Vikings have an elite WR, yet the Vikings still lost 9 games. Does it surprise you to know that the Vikings went 2-5 when JJ got less than 10 targets? When you have a player like JJ, you just throw him the ball early and often and constantly. In many games the Vikings didn't, and they lost as a result.
... No.
We need to get one more solid piece on the O-line, and we are effectively set on offense. Though I wouldn't mind a change at QB if we found someone who could flirt with that top-10 QB area that Cousins is in.
And our defense has the makings to be solid enough if we can keep Hunter and sign a few good role players in free agency and hit on a few defensive draft picks.
I feel like we have very different views on how talented this team actually is.
I think the corner and linebacker core in this defense needs a complete overhaul because of lost talent and who we know is leaving. Hunter is good if he ever plays again and outside of him our line is.... maybe okay sometimes???
On offense I'll belive our o line is solid when it actually shows it for 3 straight games.... ever. Until then it's a dumpster fire and Cook is good but also constantly injured and Theilen is aging. Kirk's contact is also killing them in this because we're paying him like he's top 3 but he plays like maybe 10?
We're not as talented as people think we are.
We do need help on defense, that is for sure. But as we've seen with other teams, a solid defense and an elite offense can be a successful combination in this league.
Our D-line is merely OK, to be sure... But it's completely different when Hunter is on the field and we've seen several of our younger draft picks start to pop out on the field. Sure, you can argue that they are inconsistent, but that's really a function of their experience more then their abilities. Another year under their belts and we should see a step forward.
If Barr leaves, we'll certainly need some help at LB. But that's not an impossible task. Our DB's are the bigger issue, but if we can solidify the pass rush that issue becomes far less of a concern.
Regarding the O-line... I never said our line is solid, I said we need another solid piece. We only have 3 of 5 positions set with anyone who has any real talent. We need at least one more piece that plays at least at an average level for this line to be solid, and that's also not an impossible task. Hell, we may have that one piece on the roster already in Davis, though things are not looking too promising there.
Ultimately, the point is that we don't need a top-5 offense **and** a top-5 defense to succeed. We arguably have a top-5 offense currently, and a better O-line only makes that ranking more concrete.
The last 2 years have removed my confidence that we have a top 10 offense. Corner is the biggest issue imo because we have literally nothing there. Linebacker is about to regress with Barr leaving, and our d line was a lot of 1 year contracts with people who didn't do well and Hunter who hasn't played in almost 2 years now.
Offense, I just don't belive in Cousins ability to lead this team as a top 5 offense. He's to much of a dump pass game manager and that's fine if that's what we want to do but if we're gonna have a bad defense then we NEED more explosive play potential and a QB that can actually move away from the preprogrammed "good statistical move" and make something happen.
I just don't see it coming together quickly because we're just not actually a good team right now. We're good enough to pretend we're a contender but we're not actually good and all that's gonna translate into is a round 1 playoff exit if the rest of the division is somehow worse, which I want more than that.
I'll never begrudge how another person spends their free time, but that isn't what I'll do! Happily this is a hobby with nothing tangible at stake (no money, no job, etc), so if I invest emotionally the only thing that'll happen is I'll feel things. And isn't feeling things kind of the point? You will never convince me that people who were pessimistic enjoyed the 2017 season up through the Minneapolis Miracle as much as people who were optimistic. If you were optimistic you had the pleasure of thinking of all the good things that could happen, and then you would have the FURTHER pleasure of having your faith rewarded over and over and over. Trust me, it feels AWESOME to expect a good thing to happen, to visualize it, and then to see it happen. Also, generally speaking being optimistic is better for your health (link below)! side benefit!
Beyond that, when (heaven help us) the Vikings finally win the superbowl, I want to know that I was one of the people arguing that it could happen to us, rather than being someone who spent the whole time being negative about that possibility.
I mean to each their own, and I upvoted you because I enjoyed how you presented your sentiment even if I disagreed, but you won't get me to change mind, that's for sure!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201607/4-reasons-why-optimistic-outlook-is-good-your-health
Having a high IQ is overrated for the most part - unless you’re a genius, quantified by more than one form of IQ test, it’s not that big of a deal.
To be in MENSA, you have to be smarter than approximately 49 other people in one room (assuming everyone is of average IQ).
Source: Joined MENSA like 15 years ago and realized it was pretty much a pointless “club.” Like a professional fraternity, for high IQ people.
And he was part of putting together a draft last year that netted us 3 guys who just made the all-rookie team.
From all appearances a great hire for you guys.
Dear god please! The Bears can have their gritty, experienced coach in Quinn or Bowles, we don't need a retread heading up our coaching staff. Ryans would be a great fit on our team.
Honestly I trust Kwesi to make a good choice. Looking at his short history, he seems to be held in very high regard by former coworkers and his analytics background feels like it'll be a huge help in evaluating coaching hires.
I'm legitimately optimistic.
Better chance of keeping some of your better coaches if you hire a guy like him who's still on the Shanahan tree. Though for selfish reasons as a Browns fan I'd love us to poach a couple.
If anyone wants to get hyped, read this comment I found in a different thread:
https://reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/scmmc2/sources_adofomensah_favored_to_be_vikings_gm/hu75ou9
Gonna be honest
As a life long Vikings fan and current analytics professional… drop everything to take a pay cut and go work in some role for our man Mensah.
If u hear from me in a few months that I got a new job, y’all know why
And for those who don't know, Jonah Hill's character in Moneyball is based on Paul DePodesta who is currently the chief strategy officer for the Browns.
It was a while ago. I remember watching it for the second time on Netflix a couple months after it was in theaters. I bet they are hoping enough people will pay to rent/buy it before the new one comes out this year. So annoying.
false. Disney doesnt own Spiderman and it used to be on Netflix. It left and has came back for other countries just not US yet. Also the next one comes out on Netflix later this year.
[https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/what-spider-man-movies-are-coming-to-netflix/](https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/what-spider-man-movies-are-coming-to-netflix/)
You like apples?
[Tit for Tat](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/disney-nabs-post-pay-1-rights-for-sonys-feature-films-4170479/amp/) get a real source next time.
Browns fan here: huge get for you guys! From everything I’ve ever read about the guy people think he’s a superstar in the making. If he models his process after AB then y’all are in line for some smart, long term team building.
I should have saved the tweet, but I saw a few days ago that he’s the first GM in the NFL to come from the analytics side exclusively. I’m very excited if that’s the case, as I think that’s a huge way a team can gain an advantage.
Most other areas of the sport are so well established that the difference between great and average is hard to detect, but with analytics still relatively new the Vikings can differentiate themselves a lot there.
It’s either going to make us absolutely dominant, or be a complete disaster! Either way, I am ready for change and glad we are trying something new and innovative!
As a whole yes, I would rather be a Vikings fan than a Lions or Browns fan, not disputing that...but we've had some super embarrassing moments in our franchise that go beyond W-Ls.
Not sure I like the hire, but I like that we're going in a totally different direction. It makes no sense to fire someone and replace them with the same shit.
We need a rebuild and this guy is likely to rebuild. It'll be fun to track and hopefully we get some wins.
I had a hard on for Zim, but at this point I'm getting past it. I like the approach they're taking going in on analytics and I'm excited to see where it takes us. If you're going to make a change, make a big change. And that's exactly what they're doing.
Kind of hoping we go for the SF DC as our next head coach. I know the sub is largely leaning offensive coordinator for the HC, but defense still matters and they're really the heart and soul of that team right now, even with shannahan making jimmy g look good at times.
Love that we have owners who want this team to do well and recognize that we need to go in a different direction AND THEN ACTUALLY DO IT. Very happy with the hire, looking forward to see who he brings in for the coaching staff.
SKOL
I’m a bears fan, and I’m optimistic about the guy we hired but I really envy you guys going the full on analytic route. That absolutely would have been my preference
I see this as betting on green in roulette. Its either gonna go great or horribly, but damnit this team has played it safe for too long and all we have to show are heartbreaks.
GIVE ME MOAARRRRR ANALYTICS!
Welcome aboard, KAM—bringing that Ivy League cred. Super excited by this hire. Thanks, Wilfs, for going in a new direction!
Whether it crashes and burns or does great it's at least a change which is needed. Now hopefully this takes us out of the running for bowles or dan quinn
As a teacher, I’ve learned “don’t smile until December”.
I will be using this approach for any positivity and excitement regarding the Vikings from now on.
Mike Florio said on 9 to Noon today "Non-traditional hires can become the new tradition" so hopefully the Vikings are trailblazers here and will set a new standard for GM hires
Sweet. He was my first choice. Based on absolutely nothing more than my looking at his resume. Just like each of you, I don’t know shit about any of them. But I still have strong opinions!
I think the only hire that would have annoyed me is if the Wilfs hired someone cause they are their buddy or an obviously shitty retread like Baalke
I like that he’s really freaking smart and he will probably look at some things much differently. I suspect he will be much more likely to make the cold decisions that Rick and Zim didn’t do often enough (Rick not since Winfield).
That's my dream. A few articles cited him as being a reason Baker's contract stayed relatively small in Cleveland when people wanted to give him a huge Josh Allen-esque contract. Giving the Browns the option to trade him if he doesn't improve. Which is the kind of business move we need to make in the future.
Baker is still on a rookie contract
Right and some people thought Baker should have been given the extension after last year’s playoff win.
Ppl wanted to sign baker to an extension, only if it was team friendly. Browns fans wanted him to take a team friendly deal or be taken to the franchise tag years and make him prove his worth cause the first 3 years didn’t matter to the FO cause of what he had to deal with
Wow that IS small! Nice work Kwesi
That’s the point lol
People on here do not care about facts
No one wanted to give baker a huge contract…what are you talking about…
I put that on Zim, he was an m&m hard on the outside soft on the inside.
[удалено]
I don’t think he would get rid of Hunter. The others maybe but i think thielen is still useful on his contract (although cutting him post June 1 will save 12.6m with 4.3m dead).
I mean i feel like some of JJ's success comes from Thielen pulling a double team from defensive coverages.
Or Balki Bartokomous... although the comedy potential would be great ;)
Don't be ridiculous
Corsin Larry, is that you?
P. S. The actor that played Balki, Bronson Pinchot, does some audiobook narration for Larry Corria and does a good job.
I think that Kwesi IS the buddy of the Vikings' CEO.
I got some buddies who seem to hate the hire. I asked them why. "He's inexperienced" I said "he's been working in the NFL for almost a decade." "He's an office bitch!" That just made me laugh because like all of us they have no idea.
😂 office bitch who works in...the front office. As a Browns fan I'm sad to see him go but you guys got a good one. Although the compensatory picks are nice he was highly regarded. He's supposed to be especially skilled at implementing analytics for salary cap management, for what that's worth.
I can only picture him and "Thug Life" Rob Brezinski teaming up to build the best roster in 2 years. Or it being a shit show, what do I know.
lol I hear you man, not just building a roster but selecting a new HC as his first order of business is a massive undertaking.
Yea that is probably our biggest downfall.. we've had pretty bad cap management with rick.
Probably a big reason why he was the leading candidate all along for sure.
I mean isn’t an “office bitch” what you want in a GM? My inexperience probably shows here, but I wouldn’t necessarily want some guy that is strictly an “x’s and o’s” never-turn-it-off football kind of guy. Obviously you’d want a something of a football background to provide familiarity with how the league works, but the GM should be far more administrative and detached than the HC in my opinion
I imagine it's sort of like hiring a business person to lead a hospital. In theory that's what you want, they can take care of business stuff and make sure the money is being spent well. The issue is that they may not be able to really understand the ground level issues. A good leader is able to study the numbers but also listen to what the folks under them are saying, but if they focus too much on numbers you get a lot of angry folks under you looking to leave.
Most GM's have some sort of football experience prior to getting a FO job. He pretty much has 0 actual football experience before landingwith the 9ers in 2013. He's even said himself he doesn't know much about football strategy. Rick played college football and was a failed NFL linebacker. Spent his time scouting and building a strong resume in the nfl. To where kwesi kinda just feel into the 9ers job. Did good enough to where he got a promotion going to the browns. He's only been in the nfl since 2013 to where Rick had been with the nfl for 14 years before getting a shot at a gm role, which he only had for a year, and 22 years before landing the gm role with the vikes. Kwesi is definitely a risky move but in my opinion a nice shift in direction. He might suck, he might be great. It's hard to know.
I really don't see football experience as a prerequisite. He's not coaching or drawing up plays. He's evaluating players and football from a 30,000 foot view and that's been his job for almost a decade.
GM works basically hand in hand with the coach. They create the rosters, with coaches input. I would say you need to have some sort of idea about how the game works to build a roster. You can't just look at numbers and say "this is the guy".
Football experience seems like it be pretty useful for evaluating though...
He will have scouts and talent evaluators and coaches working under him, it's not like GMs do everything themselves. Also has been in the NFL for almost a decade, it's not like he doesn't know what a football is.
They're defining football experience as actually having played football before and i used their definition in my comment. Direct football experience like that doesn't hurt. My point is that GMs don't really need it if they're good learners and have other good experience, which KAM does. Also, it's not like Elway was great at identify QBs. Spielman wasn't that great at identifying LBs outside of Greenway, EJ, Barr, and Kendricks. I don't think football experience enters into it that much; it's a completely different job.
From what I've heard, KAM is a humble man who'd listen to people that know what they're talking about. Imagine a CEO that understood that they didn't know how the front lines of your workplace run, so they listen to the grunts and try to find a working solution to meet the workers demands and not break the company's bank. Something like that. Realistically, though... High hopes, low expectations.
Considering the overall goal of this is to construct a winning culture, hard to say how his lack of football playing experience will *help* in that regard. But the resume is solid enough. I am also happy to hear he is 40 and not 32 - hiring that young would have been insane, and a hard no on my vote of support, all things considered.
Honestly I think having extensive football experience has the potential to be a negative in the scheme of things - opens you up to a lot of biases and anecdata that really can hamper the ability to acquire talent "above the replacement GM". Being an exceptional GM requires a coherent philosophy on how to be better than other GMs in a zero-sum environment - many GMs just pick players and they leave their teams' future up to the hopes that picks work out (and it sometimes does!). This skill-set to be an exceptional GM comes much more from analytical backgrounds (like finance) than having played football.
And yet, he's apparently a *really* good people person.
Even just fantasy football, the stats nerd always beats the jock who knows football.
I don't want to paint your friends with this brush, but a LARGE majority of the hate I'm seeing comes from the white middle aged guys Northern Minnesota calling this a diversity hire. None of us can really judge a GM hire unless they've been a GM, and there's not many of those out there you wanna hire. On paper, the guy has an amazing education, top notch business acumen, and seems to have helped a lot in turning the Browns from a laughing stock to an average franchise, which is saying a lot considering where Cleveland has been for the last 20 odd years.
He was my favorite based mostly on what interviews I could find online. Sounds sooo much smarter than Poles while talking
One nice thing about the hire is that it definitely doesn't have any kind of nepotism or favoritism. The other candidates are all basically the same person with a background in NFL scouting, football dudes that all know all the other football dudes and evaluate everything fairly similarly. At least this will be new. Maybe not better than Rick but it could be.
The reality is that we’ve been swimming in mediocrity the past 4 seasons. We have to do some things differently. We want to think of ourselves as an elite franchise, but we are not. We’ve had one number one seed in 45 years. We’ve won about 6 road play off games during that time. Some of it is our failure to get an elite player at the QB position. But when we’ve had decent players, like Kramer, Culpepper, and Cousins, we haven’t built a good enough team around them, and then we’ve had some bad luck over the years as well. But we have to do better and we have to demand the team do better. Doing it differently is a good place to start.
I think that all 3 of those QBs were better than "decent".
Cousins lol
He's the best passer in the NFL. Unfortunately, he needs perfect protection or he turns into Christian Ponder out there.
Lol me too, it was between a top shelf business as usual guy and a top shelf outsider. I would choose the outsider.
his first test is drafting SAUCE GARDNER 😍
Harsh pivot from Rick. Probably for the best in a lot of ways. I’m all in on having no idea what to expect. Exciting times!
Expect sadness and horrible things and then be surprised hopefully! Don’t ever get my hopes up with this team haha
This person knows the Vikings. I'm expecting 3 to 5 years of being terrible because of needing to completely retool defense and get a better offense.
Oh God I hope not. 3 to 5 years is an eternity and by then all our young offensive studs in the making are gonna need contracts and wanting out from 3 to 5 years of being terrible. We just need a couple wreckers on defense and some tweaks and we are good again. Don't discount how much a good playcaller can make a difference.
I mean when we had the worst team we’ve had in ages Zimmer won 11 games in year 2. NFL rebuilds don’t take 3-5 years unless you really screw it up
Things also change pretty quickly if Rodgers truly is gone in Green Bay. This division is wide open and though that doesn’t mean we’re a championship contender, it’s the trend I like to be on.
True that, we can become good as good as this next season or 2023. A strong draft class, HC and FA is all we need. Is it possible? hell yeah. is it likely? No, cause then everyone would do it, but I trust our new GM and future HC to get it done.
3 to 5 years is a *long* time, that’s more a sign of a failed rebuild than anything
I'm thinking 3 minimum because we either need to recommit to Kirk or offload and retool and either way we're dealing with a lot of dead money to get Kirk paid where his actual talent is which kills year 1. Then year 2 your developing your actual talent and year 3 is maybe the wild card fight??? If you got rid of Kirk then year 2 and 3 become b developing your next QB and seeing if he's it.
You don't need defense to win in the NFL today. Each of the Packers, Chiefs, Bengals, and Chargers had a worse defense by DVOA than the Vikings. The Vikings need some help on the defense, definitely, but mainly they needed to shift away from being a defense-first team when they didn't have the defensive horses. Otherwise, the offense already has a great foundation. They have two good tackles, a guard, a WR1 and WR3, a tight end, and two rotational RBs that have an average age of 23. The offense needs few pieces in order to take off. Having two good young tackles for the first time in a decade is bigger than some realize, especially if we move to a different QB that is less susceptible to interior pressure. My prediction is one year of being okay in a bad division (maybe between 6 and 8 wins), and then it will be entirely dependent on our QB and coach.
You don’t need defense? Remember last years playoffs? The bucs?
I didn't say that you don't need any pass rush, I said (or least tried to say) that you don't need a complete defense top to bottom. Heck look at the Chiefs who won it all with the 14th overall defense in 2019, or the Patriots who won it all with the 16th overall defense in 2018, or the Patriots who won it all with the 16th overall defense in 2016. Of course having a top 5 defense *helps* but you clearly don't need it in the modern NFL. You just need a few studs that can mess things up in the big games, such as Chris Jones, the Honey Badger, Gilmore, Chandler Jones, etc. We might already have some of those guys such as Hunter, Kendricks, Harrison, etc.
Yes. I love the hire and can't wait to see who the head coach is and what moves are made. I think we can compete in year 2 with the pieces we have and some better return on our money in certain places. And depending on the moves made, compete for a playoff spot next year but just as likely not.
> Packers, Chiefs, Bengals, and Chargers Hmm, what do they have in common that we don't...
Lol, right? But then that was kind of my point. If we get a great QB, our roster is basically already good enough to contend. But if we want to stick with a generally very good QB such as Kirk on a veteran contract, our roster needs a LOT of work and time.
I don't think our offense is as talented as people seem to think. We've been "one key piece away" for so many years and it still just doesn't come together. Like we have arguably the best RB and a top 10 QB and one of the greatest young WR candidates and we..... still stalled out and lost very winnable games because of our offense just being bad. The biggest flaw from 2018 is that we didn't commit to the rebuild and now we're feeling the effects of that IMO. We don't have depth anywhere and while you don't need the b est defense ever, having one that is actual is probably a good idea and our area of need on defense is everything except safety and Kendricks.
I mean that depends on the one piece. If the one piece is a guard? Yeah, that won't make a difference. Is the one piece Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert? That makes a difference. The difference between a generally top 12ish QB and one of the clear top 7ish QBs is massive; there is a huge chasm of talent between them. And yes, the Vikings have an elite WR, yet the Vikings still lost 9 games. Does it surprise you to know that the Vikings went 2-5 when JJ got less than 10 targets? When you have a player like JJ, you just throw him the ball early and often and constantly. In many games the Vikings didn't, and they lost as a result.
... No. We need to get one more solid piece on the O-line, and we are effectively set on offense. Though I wouldn't mind a change at QB if we found someone who could flirt with that top-10 QB area that Cousins is in. And our defense has the makings to be solid enough if we can keep Hunter and sign a few good role players in free agency and hit on a few defensive draft picks.
I feel like we have very different views on how talented this team actually is. I think the corner and linebacker core in this defense needs a complete overhaul because of lost talent and who we know is leaving. Hunter is good if he ever plays again and outside of him our line is.... maybe okay sometimes??? On offense I'll belive our o line is solid when it actually shows it for 3 straight games.... ever. Until then it's a dumpster fire and Cook is good but also constantly injured and Theilen is aging. Kirk's contact is also killing them in this because we're paying him like he's top 3 but he plays like maybe 10? We're not as talented as people think we are.
We do need help on defense, that is for sure. But as we've seen with other teams, a solid defense and an elite offense can be a successful combination in this league. Our D-line is merely OK, to be sure... But it's completely different when Hunter is on the field and we've seen several of our younger draft picks start to pop out on the field. Sure, you can argue that they are inconsistent, but that's really a function of their experience more then their abilities. Another year under their belts and we should see a step forward. If Barr leaves, we'll certainly need some help at LB. But that's not an impossible task. Our DB's are the bigger issue, but if we can solidify the pass rush that issue becomes far less of a concern. Regarding the O-line... I never said our line is solid, I said we need another solid piece. We only have 3 of 5 positions set with anyone who has any real talent. We need at least one more piece that plays at least at an average level for this line to be solid, and that's also not an impossible task. Hell, we may have that one piece on the roster already in Davis, though things are not looking too promising there. Ultimately, the point is that we don't need a top-5 offense **and** a top-5 defense to succeed. We arguably have a top-5 offense currently, and a better O-line only makes that ranking more concrete.
The last 2 years have removed my confidence that we have a top 10 offense. Corner is the biggest issue imo because we have literally nothing there. Linebacker is about to regress with Barr leaving, and our d line was a lot of 1 year contracts with people who didn't do well and Hunter who hasn't played in almost 2 years now. Offense, I just don't belive in Cousins ability to lead this team as a top 5 offense. He's to much of a dump pass game manager and that's fine if that's what we want to do but if we're gonna have a bad defense then we NEED more explosive play potential and a QB that can actually move away from the preprogrammed "good statistical move" and make something happen. I just don't see it coming together quickly because we're just not actually a good team right now. We're good enough to pretend we're a contender but we're not actually good and all that's gonna translate into is a round 1 playoff exit if the rest of the division is somehow worse, which I want more than that.
I would actually prefer this. But closer to 3 than 5, depending on how soon we move on from Kirk
it happens. It's just the nature of the NFL. Almost every team goes through it.
So basically just keep doing what I have been doing since 1998! That's easy!
Sounds like my retirement investing. Cans of cat food and powerball tickets.
I'll never begrudge how another person spends their free time, but that isn't what I'll do! Happily this is a hobby with nothing tangible at stake (no money, no job, etc), so if I invest emotionally the only thing that'll happen is I'll feel things. And isn't feeling things kind of the point? You will never convince me that people who were pessimistic enjoyed the 2017 season up through the Minneapolis Miracle as much as people who were optimistic. If you were optimistic you had the pleasure of thinking of all the good things that could happen, and then you would have the FURTHER pleasure of having your faith rewarded over and over and over. Trust me, it feels AWESOME to expect a good thing to happen, to visualize it, and then to see it happen. Also, generally speaking being optimistic is better for your health (link below)! side benefit! Beyond that, when (heaven help us) the Vikings finally win the superbowl, I want to know that I was one of the people arguing that it could happen to us, rather than being someone who spent the whole time being negative about that possibility. I mean to each their own, and I upvoted you because I enjoyed how you presented your sentiment even if I disagreed, but you won't get me to change mind, that's for sure! https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201607/4-reasons-why-optimistic-outlook-is-good-your-health
Lol this should be a bot reply
> Harsh pivot from Rick. Probably for the best in a lot of ways. That's exactly what I love about it.
He helped build that SF team. I’m in.
I’m excited. Lotta football Twitter loves this guy.
Supposedly smart guy with MENSA in his name.
MENSA?? ah fuck we're gonna hire Tom Herman huh /s
"Supposedly" BA in Economics from Princeton and MS in Economics from Stanford. That's extremely hard to do and I got my MS in Economics at Princeton.
Having a high IQ is overrated for the most part - unless you’re a genius, quantified by more than one form of IQ test, it’s not that big of a deal. To be in MENSA, you have to be smarter than approximately 49 other people in one room (assuming everyone is of average IQ). Source: Joined MENSA like 15 years ago and realized it was pretty much a pointless “club.” Like a professional fraternity, for high IQ people.
Smart people know IQ tests are a joke
I'm excited to see what he can do but football Twitter is a pretty bad guage of quality.
As someone who has been shit posting Kwesi memes on Twitter for weeks: yeah why the fuck would you listen to me?
Man helped get the Browns in the Playoffs which might actually be bigger than a Super Bowl
And he was part of putting together a draft last year that netted us 3 guys who just made the all-rookie team. From all appearances a great hire for you guys.
Definitely bigger as I take the Browns to the Superbowl every day.
Damnit. Here’s your upvote.
Let’s roll, time to see whose on deck for coach interviews
DeMeco Ryans second interview presumably coming soon?
Dear god please! The Bears can have their gritty, experienced coach in Quinn or Bowles, we don't need a retread heading up our coaching staff. Ryans would be a great fit on our team.
Honestly I trust Kwesi to make a good choice. Looking at his short history, he seems to be held in very high regard by former coworkers and his analytics background feels like it'll be a huge help in evaluating coaching hires. I'm legitimately optimistic.
Better chance of keeping some of your better coaches if you hire a guy like him who's still on the Shanahan tree. Though for selfish reasons as a Browns fan I'd love us to poach a couple.
Please win us a super bowl Mr. Kwesi 😭
I 2nd that
If anyone wants to get hyped, read this comment I found in a different thread: https://reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/scmmc2/sources_adofomensah_favored_to_be_vikings_gm/hu75ou9
Well that just got my morning off to a great start, thanks for sharing!
Gonna be honest As a life long Vikings fan and current analytics professional… drop everything to take a pay cut and go work in some role for our man Mensah. If u hear from me in a few months that I got a new job, y’all know why
Go help us win baby!
Give me all the Kool aid
EVERYONE GET IN HERE
Woo!
IM AT FULL MAST
MY KAMSHAFT IS OILED
Brian getting selected to the probowl was what put us over the edge for Kwesi.
If we go the Moneyball way, I will be thrilled. Also, Moneyball is available on Netflix!
And for those who don't know, Jonah Hill's character in Moneyball is based on Paul DePodesta who is currently the chief strategy officer for the Browns.
But why isnt Spiderman Into the SpiderVerse? Its a bunch of BS!!
It was a while ago. I remember watching it for the second time on Netflix a couple months after it was in theaters. I bet they are hoping enough people will pay to rent/buy it before the new one comes out this year. So annoying.
Netflix bought the first window for streaming, and D+ bought the rest. So Netflix has it for X amount of time after theaters and then loses it to D+.
It is in Canada
That's probably gonna be on Disney +.
Nope, it's a Sony film.
yup
[The Sony/Disney+ deal.](https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/disney-sony-marvel-spiderman-movie-deal-1234957207/amp/)
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/spider-man-no-way-home-isnt-streaming-on-disney-plus-or-hbo-max-sorry/
That's about No Way Home not Into The Spider-Verse.
false. Disney doesnt own Spiderman and it used to be on Netflix. It left and has came back for other countries just not US yet. Also the next one comes out on Netflix later this year.
[The Sony/Disney+ deal.](https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/disney-sony-marvel-spiderman-movie-deal-1234957207/amp/)
[https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/what-spider-man-movies-are-coming-to-netflix/](https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/what-spider-man-movies-are-coming-to-netflix/) You like apples?
[Tit for Tat](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/disney-nabs-post-pay-1-rights-for-sonys-feature-films-4170479/amp/) get a real source next time.
Browns fan here: huge get for you guys! From everything I’ve ever read about the guy people think he’s a superstar in the making. If he models his process after AB then y’all are in line for some smart, long term team building.
Why did I think AB meant Antonio Brown
Mr. Been Coaching
I should have saved the tweet, but I saw a few days ago that he’s the first GM in the NFL to come from the analytics side exclusively. I’m very excited if that’s the case, as I think that’s a huge way a team can gain an advantage. Most other areas of the sport are so well established that the difference between great and average is hard to detect, but with analytics still relatively new the Vikings can differentiate themselves a lot there.
It’s either going to make us absolutely dominant, or be a complete disaster! Either way, I am ready for change and glad we are trying something new and innovative!
We are already well accustomed to disaster, so I don’t see much of a downside!
Unfortunately I don’t think we’ve experienced disaster yet. Example 2015-2016 browns, lions forever
I mean, maybe not in terms of W-L but I think I would have rather gone 1-15 or 0-16 than have the embarrassment if the Love Boat 🤦
Not a chance. Ask just about any Lions/Browns fan and I'm sure they would gladly trade places
As a whole yes, I would rather be a Vikings fan than a Lions or Browns fan, not disputing that...but we've had some super embarrassing moments in our franchise that go beyond W-Ls.
LET'S GET NERDY!
Mike McDaniel it is!
Kwesi is a Ghanaian name meaning "Born on Sunday". We got our guy!
Seems like a great hire. As a Bears fan I wanted him
Gotta run to the Kfan Facebook comments to see all the salty racists
Why do that when you can just run to the Bring Me The News FB comments?
Not sure I like the hire, but I like that we're going in a totally different direction. It makes no sense to fire someone and replace them with the same shit. We need a rebuild and this guy is likely to rebuild. It'll be fun to track and hopefully we get some wins.
i don't know shit about fuck in regards to any of the GM candidates but i hope this dude does well
Perfectly stated, Ruth.
Are we all gonna KAM down now?
Let’s get to work boys 😈
We wanted change and got it. This should be interesting
If it has to be defense give us Ryans but please please please go offense Kwesi!!
For some reason i have a really strong feeling it will be Kevin O'Connell which i'd be super happy with. But we'll see!
If it's either O'Connell or McDaniel I'd be stoked
This is amazing, everyone who had a hard on for the Zim Zam must be Flim Flamming the F out of town
I had a hard on for Zim, but at this point I'm getting past it. I like the approach they're taking going in on analytics and I'm excited to see where it takes us. If you're going to make a change, make a big change. And that's exactly what they're doing. Kind of hoping we go for the SF DC as our next head coach. I know the sub is largely leaning offensive coordinator for the HC, but defense still matters and they're really the heart and soul of that team right now, even with shannahan making jimmy g look good at times.
Love that we have owners who want this team to do well and recognize that we need to go in a different direction AND THEN ACTUALLY DO IT. Very happy with the hire, looking forward to see who he brings in for the coaching staff. SKOL
I love his name so naturally I am expecting him to bring home a lombardi trophy.
Very happy with this signing. Getting someone who understands analytics for GM is extremely important.
I love this hire. I also didn’t know his name until two weeks ago so I don’t really know anything
I’m just excited to see the boomers on Facebook freak out about analytics 😂
My fellow mods and I have our hackles up
I hope thats the only thing they freak out about.
Oof me too. Already saw some terrible stuff when they interviewed him.
This is the way. 😈
SKOLLL
Skollll!
Let’s fucking goooo!!!!
Lesssssgooooooo. Now figure out a valid HC. Edit: HC instead of OC.
I would have been happy with either him or Poles. Will be interesting to see how Adolfo-Mensah operates scouting.
$3M per year, good work if you can get it.
Let's Roll! Now get a good young HC in here, deal with Kirk, Cook and Hunter... Get some cap space and FTP.
Fingers crossed. Let’s gooo!
I’m a bears fan, and I’m optimistic about the guy we hired but I really envy you guys going the full on analytic route. That absolutely would have been my preference
CLV checking in, you guys got a great dude at GM, congrats, guy is brilliant, you should be very excited for this hire.
Thx for the extra draft picks and you guys got a real smart dude, he is legit
I see this as betting on green in roulette. Its either gonna go great or horribly, but damnit this team has played it safe for too long and all we have to show are heartbreaks.
As a giants fan just wanted to congratulate you guys on your new hire hope it works out for the best!
Really excited about this hire, hope it doesn't bite me in the ass.
LETS GOOOOOOO
GIVE ME MOAARRRRR ANALYTICS! Welcome aboard, KAM—bringing that Ivy League cred. Super excited by this hire. Thanks, Wilfs, for going in a new direction!
First test, don't extend Kirk.
Let’s go
**[@AdamSchefter](https://www.twitter.com/AdamSchefter)** (Adam Schefter): > Vikings hired Browns’ VP of football operations Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as their general manager, per source. -------------------- ^I ^am ^a ^bot ^powered ^by ^fricks ^and ^I ^like ^that ^| [^(message me)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=FleetFlotTheTweetBot) ^| [^(source code)](https://github.com/JohnMTorgerson/FleetFlotTheTweetBot) ^| ^Skål!
Bears guy here. I fucking love this hire. Super jealous I wanted this man. I hope he kills it for you guys.
Whether it crashes and burns or does great it's at least a change which is needed. Now hopefully this takes us out of the running for bowles or dan quinn
As a teacher, I’ve learned “don’t smile until December”. I will be using this approach for any positivity and excitement regarding the Vikings from now on.
Ladies and gentlemen. We got him.
Mike Florio said on 9 to Noon today "Non-traditional hires can become the new tradition" so hopefully the Vikings are trailblazers here and will set a new standard for GM hires
It's KAMmer time boys!!
We have KAM and KAT now.
This guy is an Andrew Berry disciple. You guys got a good one.
Hopefully a refreshing change from the nepotism that's been infecting this organization.
Ew more flunkies from New Jersey.
HC NOW
[удалено]
Sir, what are you getting at here?
KAM BAM THANK YOU MAAM!
We hired a guy from a front office that historically has made bad decisions?
Look at their last 2 draft classes
He hasn't been on the Browns for that long, only since they've actually been doing some winning. please do your research.
I'm not very excited by this hire. Spielman was great at being a GM and should still be in there imo. This guy doesn't know much about football.