Kwesi Adofo-Mensah: "We're Trying To Win On The Margins"
Thursday, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah had his introductory conference call with the local media. The new Vice President of Football Operations for the Cleveland Browns was largely asked how he got here and what his role in the organization will be.
Mensah previously worked as a commodities trader before transitioning to the NFL and most recently worked with the San Francisco 49ers where he worked in football research and development dating back to 2013. He is heading what amounts to be the data driven side of the football operation while Glenn Cook, the Vice President of Pro Personnel, is heading up the purer scouting side. The goal is to be able to effectively mesh those two departments together to help general manager Andrew Berry make the best football decisions possible for the team.
Mensah is the latest addition to the Browns that went to an Ivy League school. In this case, it was Princeton where Mensah was a walk-on for the basketball team. At one point, he relates to the famous Princeton offense in terms of seeking efficiency and trying to find ways to create an advantage.
Mensah earned a graduate degree in economics from Stanford.
That is the main focus of his job with the Browns leading the football operations department. They want to find better ways to do things and be able to provide pertinent information that helps the team makes the best decisions possible from player acquisition to roster construction to in-game emphasis.
"We're trying to win on the margins and so we're trying extricate every little winning possible advantage we can find across football operations and using evidence to support that, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah told reporters Thursday. "And I think Kevin [Stefanski], AB [Andrew Berry], [Paul[ DePodesta, everybody in the organization are aligned in that sense."
