Four Takeaways From Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's Introductory Press Conference

Adofo-Mensah knocked it out of the park in his opening presser. Now the real work begins.

With Vikings owner and president Mark Wilf at his side, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah strolled up to a stage assembled between the hashmarks of the Vikings' indoor practice facility in Eagan. Sporting a suit with a purple tie and a Vikings lapel pin, he looked out at a crowd that included local reporters as well as team executives and staffers. To his right, his mother and fiancée looked on with pride.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Adofo-Mensah had signed a four-year contract to become the Vikings' next general manager. Now here he was, speaking publicly about his new job for the very first time.

Adofo-Mensah's introductory press conference couldn't have gone much better. He was thoughtful, insightful, and charming as he described how he got to this point and what his vision for the future of the Vikings' franchise looks like. It was easy to see what drew the team's internal search committee — led by the Wilfs, Andrew Miller, Rob Brzezinski, and several others — to him in this process.

Making a strong first impression is important, but it's also ultimately meaningless. This was the easy part. Now the real work begins, as Adofo-Mensah embarks on the quest to become the first GM to bring a Super Bowl victory to this state that so desperately desires one. As soon as his media obligations ended, it was off to the races. He now faces the challenge of learning on the fly, getting acclimated with the entire organization, and diving into a coaching search and offseason that will define at least the first few years of his tenure.

Let's get to some key takeaways from Adofo-Mensah's presser.

The coaching search is about to heat up

One of the first orders of business for the Vikings' new GM is to hire a head coach to join him in leading the next era of this football team. The search committee already interviewed eight candidates for the position — five or six of whom are still available — but that was before Adofo-Mensah was hired. Now he becomes the leading force in the next stage of the process.

Adofo-Mensah and the committee have already had initial conversations about candidates, and those got more specific and detailed right away on Thursday afternoon. It shouldn't be long before we see the team begin its next round of interviews with Adofo-Mensah at the forefront. Whether those are limited to candidates who have already met with the Vikings once, or if the list is going to expand, is unclear. But there are major football decisions to make ahead of free agency, so one would imagine a hire could be coming by the end of next week.

"We’re going to dive into this head coaching search and bring a partner for me and this organization that’s going to lead us where we want to go," Adofo-Mensah said. "We know what we want to find — we want leadership, we want somebody who is going to value the collective over the individual, we want somebody who has a vision, who can communicate, who has a solid football foundation, who understands how football is interconnected and what that means. That’s been our focus in these last few days honing in on what we want. In terms of specific names, we’re going to meet after this and talk about that further."

Three logical people to keep an eye on are the coaches on the Vikings' initial list who are still alive in the playoffs: 49ers DC DeMeco Ryans, Rams OC Kevin O'Connell, and Rams DC Raheem Morris. They'll all be available for second interviews after Sunday's NFC title game. Plenty of other names not currently on the list could come up as well. Adofo-Mensah declined to specify if he will be the one making the final decision on the team's next head coach, but did say that it won't be a solo effort.

"If you know me, whether I say I make the decision or not, it’s going to be a collaborative process," he said. "I’m always about different viewpoints, different ideas. Not to be all 'algorithms are life,' but you find that the best decision-making engines combine information that isn’t related to each other or even the thing you’re trying to find. So what it’s really saying is you want information that covers the blind spots of the other things. That’s a core belief of mine. So any decision-making room I’m in, I’m always seeking the other opinion, trying to put everything together, then come out on the other end."

He wants to learn from others and create an inclusive culture

One of the primary things the Vikings were looking for in this process was someone who would help bring about a change in culture. Leadership, communication, and collaboration are the three words Wilf used over and over when describing what they wanted in the team's next GM and head coach. They want everyone to be in alignment and moving in the same direction, which was missing to some extent at the end of the Rick Spielman-Mike Zimmer era.

They believe they've found the perfect guy for the job in Adofo-Mensah.

"[Kwesi] immediately stood out to us in his interviews because of his vision for long-term success and his comprehensive information gathering and his intentional decision-making processes," Wilf said. "He’s a tremendous leader who believes in connecting people, building consensus and having strong communication throughout the organization, all of the traits that we spoke about when we began looking for new leadership a few weeks ago."

Beyond diving into conversations about the coaching search, the other task that was at the top of Adofo-Mensah's to-do list on Thursday afternoon was to start calling Vikings players and getting to know them and their viewpoints. If he's going to help shape the environment surrounding the team, he wants to know everything the players would like to see in that regard.

"I'm the new person in the culture, so I want to make sure I learn what it is to its full detail," Adofo-Mensah said. "That starts with having conversations with players. Right after you guys let me go, I'm going to start calling them and really learning about what makes them proud to be a Minnesota Viking. I'm going to talk with other members of the front office, this organization, and really learn this culture from them and ask them what they want it to be."

"When you get to a culture, you first want to see what it is and see what people think and see where they want to grow. Again, when I get off with you guys, that's the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go talk to the leadership council and see what they have to say. I'm a consensus builder, I love information. So nothing they say is going to shock me or be anything negative. I want to take it into consideration. We have general thoughts on what we want [in a head coach] but hearing from players is not going to hurt that and I look forward to having that dialogue with them."

He doesn't like the word 'analytics'

Adofo-Mensah gets attached to the NFL buzzword 'analytics' a lot because of his non-traditional background. He has two degrees in economics, worked as a commodities trader and portfolio manager on Wall Street, and then spent seven years in the 49ers' research and development department.

But it's not a word he's ever liked or used very much, because he thinks people misconstrue what it means.

"I remember when John [Lynch] and Kyle [Shanahan] came to San Francisco, we had a meeting where everybody goes around the room and introduces themselves, and I took that opportunity to stand up and say 'I don't know what analytics is,' and I think I might've laid an expletive in there so I could be extra football guy. For me, it's about being thoughtful and intentional. And I don't think that's a new thing. I think that word's become really about who's doing the work, not what is being done."

"It's about asking why, trying to figure out what you're doing, and sometimes that involves quantitative research, sometimes that involves just talking to people about experience, using their intuition. It varies, but at the end of the day, the core thing is learning, trying to figure out why, and then using that 'why' to make better decisions with intent and just a detailed focus."

People tend to compare and contrast Adofo-Mensah's background with that of a typical 'football guy,' which the former Princeton JV basketball player is not. For example, that's someone who played football in college and maybe the NFL, came up as a scout, became a scouting director and then a director of player personnel or assistant GM before landing the coveted GM job. Rick Spielman followed that path. So did Ryan Poles, the Vikings' other finalist who was hired by the Bears.

But Adofo-Mensah doesn't think those two paths are as dissimilar as some might believe.

"Both of those things are information," he said. "Somebody watches a game, a player, right, they're making high-level assumptions and observations about what that player's doing. Analytics, or simple observations, allows you to write those simple observations down as data and be able to go back later and study them historically. You can go back and say 'Hey, is there any information that would've helped us make this decision better in the past?' But that's the same thing that a scout watches and does with his process. He goes and says 'Hey, of all the great players that have come in the league that I observed before, what worked? What predicted the right thing?' And as I said, it's combining both. You appreciate that they're different. You want one to cover the other in terms of blind spots. So really, it's just that combined approach. They honestly are the same thing, they're just two different avenues to get there."

Family and fit are extremely important to him

Adofo-Mensah was sharp, composed, and confident in his comments throughout the 35-minute press conference. The only time he got emotional was when talking about his mother, Emma, a Ghanaian immigrant who he credits for instilling his work ethic in him.

"She’s incredible," he said. "Just growing up it was always ‘You can do anything.' Practices, it didn’t matter what it was, it was always 'Did you try your hardest? Did you practice? Did you prepare?' and it was always process over results. She was the first person who taught me that. She always had this phrase, 'When something goes on in life, all I can do is work.' That’s all she would tell me; all I can do is work. So when I see problems now, I kind of get this smile on my face and I think of my mom. I roll up my sleeves and that’s when I’m most comfortable. She’s everything to me."

Adofo-Mensah's father passed away in the fall of 2014, during Kwesi's second season in the NFL. His 49ers had just beaten the Cowboys in the season opener, winning the turnover battle 4-0. It was a busy day, and Adofo-Mensah wasn't able to answer the phone. The last words his father said to him came in a voicemail following that game — a voicemail he has kept over the years and still listens to when he needs a boost.

"One of the things he was best at was telling me how proud he was of me," Adofo-Mensah said. "I know he’d be very proud if he was here today. The last thing he said to me — it’s funny. We beat the Cowboys years ago, and you know how football season goes, your communication skills aren’t great. You don’t get back to people in your life; I’m trying to get better at that. We were plus-four that day we beat the Cowboys. My dad left me a voicemail and it’s something that I listen to all the time. He said ‘I’m proud of you. Your boys made a statement.’ And sometimes when I need a little extra, I play the voicemail because I think there are more statements to be made. That’s the work I always strive towards."

There's Adofo-Mensah's big brother and little sister, who he remains close with and credits for keeping him humble when he needs it. And there's his fiancée, who showed up to the presser wearing a vintage Vikings hat that she ordered right after his first interview with the team, over a week before he landed the job.

"It was just an immediate fit," Adofo-Mensah said. "It just felt right. I was catching up with [Browns GM Andrew Berry] afterward, and we were talking about things, and I was just like, ‘Man, they were so detail-oriented, so process-driven.’ And he’s like, ‘It sounds like you’ve found your people.’ And I was just like, ‘Yeah. I think it made sense, man.’ I came down from my study — it was a Zoom, it was snowing in Cleveland so I couldn’t get to the office — and I came downstairs and I was kind of skipping. My fiancée was like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. There was just an energy from it. I felt energized afterward.’ She went on Etsy that moment and bought a vintage Vikings hat that she is wearing over there right now. So I think she knew before I did that I’d be here."

"I really do believe that I was meant to be your general manager," he went on to say, addressing all of the Vikings fans watching. "I think it was just meant to be."

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