Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah Clarifies Viral Comments on Kirk Cousins, Rams
Vikings first-time general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is learning one of the difficult things about being in a leadership position in the NFL: everything you say has the potential to take off on the internet and become a story.
Last week, Adofo-Mensah did an interview with USA Today's Jori Epstein that was interesting for a number of reasons. The story is worth reading in full for insight on the Vikings' unconventional GM and how he views decision-making.
But the No. 1 thing that came out of the story centered around the first quote that appears in it, in which he appears to give less than a full vote of confidence to the polarizing quarterback he extended this spring, Kirk Cousins.
"I’ll be frank," he told Epstein. "The one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down is quarterback." Adofo-Mensah called Cousins "a good quarterback." But then he added that "we don’t have Tom Brady" and "we don’t have Pat Mahomes."
"(The Super Bowl) is more likely to win if you have that quarterback," he said. "It’s very unlikely to have that quarterback."
Unsurprisingly, that quote took off. Even though there's nothing groundbreaking about the idea that Cousins is a middle-tier starting QB, Adofo-Mensah's comments became fodder for articles and the Pat McAfee Show and much more.
On Tuesday, he attempted to clarify what he meant.
"That literally was a riff on the very question (a reporter) asked me, I want to say on our second press conference about team-building in the NBA vs. the NFL," he said. "So that was just a general conversation about why this is such a different exercise than the NBA. In that sport, you kinda do want to tear it down because you want the No. 1 pick. And I said the only thing that makes you nervous in the NFL that people are kinda coming to is the position of quarterback. You know what I mean?"
But Adofo-Mensah knows, now, that things like that will be taken as direct comments on the team that he manages.
"I'm kinda new to the media thing," he said. "I think, at times, I'm a very passionate person. I love talking about this stuff: team-building, decision-making, and I think in those moments, I can get theoretical and high-level. But as the general manager of the Minnesota Vikings, everybody's gonna fill in the gaps of what I'm saying relating to the team. And that's unfair for me to maybe put that on the organization, and I never want to do that. I think, at times, your words can be airlifted out of the context of the conversation and placed on the page. As somebody who's new to this, I have to get better at understanding how that mindflow can imply things, and obviously I want to be great for this organization, and I'll keep getting better."
"But that wasn't said with any of that context. Kirk knows how I feel about him. We're in a good place. I love his mindset coming into camp, and that's where we're at."
The quarterback quote wasn't the only one that drew some attention.
While talking about team-building philosophy, Adofo-Mensah also used an interesting comparison to get across the idea that going all-in on one season is a risky proposition.
"If it were a seven-game series, yeah, best team wins," he said. "That’s ultimately why when you’re team building, you never want to go full Rams. Because you need to give yourself three chances at it, four years at it. I know that’s hard for fans to hear."
Again, maybe not the best choice of words, considering he just hired a head coach and several others from a Rams team that won the Super Bowl five months ago.
"That was probably not the best turn of phrase," he said on Tuesday. "I think in my evolution as a GM, I’ll be better. I have a great deal of respect for the Rams and what they’ve done, obviously, and what they’ve been able to accomplish. What I was trying to say...in football a lot of times we tell ourselves that we’re there, that this is the year. There’s an oblong ball. There’s variance in the sport. There’s variance with injuries. To be able to put all of your chips in at the poker table is, a lot of times, not wise. You want to be able to do it two, three, four times so you can win one or two. That’s just kind of how the odds work. If you look at the Patriots, they got to the game a lot more times than they won. So that’s also what I meant, I probably didn’t use the best turn of phrase."
As with his thoughts on the QB position, there's nothing wrong with what Adofo-Mensah said. He's just learning that if he doesn't want to stir things up on social media, he has to choose his words carefully.
"My wife tells me sometimes to say less," he said. "So I’ll say less."
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