Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah On Minnesota's Kirk Cousins Decision
INDIANAPOLIS — With his mentor Andrew Berry looking on in the crowd, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah took the podium as an NFL general manager for the first time at the 2022 NFL combine on Tuesday.
The combine is about evaluating draft prospects, but it's also about a lot more than that. With free agency and the start of the new league year rapidly approaching, the combine kicks the offseason into overdrive. Executives, coaches, and scouts from all 32 NFL teams — along with draft prospects, player agents, media members, and other football people — descend on downtown Indy for a week for a multitude of reasons. It's a crucial time for people like Adofo-Mensah and Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell to have face-to-face conversations with other teams and key agents as they prepare to dive into the offseason.
The Vikings' new GM, who has been on the job for just over a month but has already accomplished a lot, spoke on a variety of topics to kick off combine week, both at his televised podium appearance and in a side session with Vikings beat writers shortly afterwards.
And yes, the No. 1 topic of interest was Kirk Cousins. How could it not be? No decision facing the Vikings' braintrust of Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell will be more impactful than the one they end up making regarding their polarizing starting quarterback.
The theme we saw in Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell's introductory press conference continued on Tuesday. They like Cousins and have a vision for what he can accomplish in a new offensive scheme, but they're also (obviously) not going to come out and say that they absolutely want to sign him to another lucrative extension.
"He’s an incredibly consistent passer," Adofo-Mensah said at the podium. "I don’t think people realize it. Essentially, every play has a result built into it based on factors that he can’t control. I think what you know about Kirk, is when the odds are shifted in his favor, he gets the most out of it, right? And I think people don’t appreciate that skill enough. But he is incredibly consistent, an incredibly accurate thrower. Tough. Durable. He plays every game. He stands there and takes those hits when those throws are a little bit harder to come by. He’s an incredible player, really cerebral. He’s one of the first phone calls I made [when I got this job]. Just incredibly talented, smart, detailed. The level of detail of things we talked about was incredible. I’m excited to work with him."
That's the cookie-cutter answer for the cameras, even if it came with plenty of insight. Adofo-Mensah specifying that Cousins shines "when the odds are shifted in his favor" is certainly noteworthy, considering a common criticism of the Vikings' quarterback is that he needs those helpful circumstances to be there for him to have success.
What Adofo-Mensah said on the side contained a bit more context. He reiterated that he's spoken to both Cousins and Cousins' agent, Mike McCartney, and that those conversations will continue going forward.
"We just talked generally about our vision for the team and what we want to accomplish," Adofo-Mensah said. "Look, those conversations are ongoing and I can't tell you anything at this moment, but we will communicate and we will do whatever's best for the Minnesota Vikings and Kirk will do what's best for Kirk. But I think there's a lot of middle ground for us to work well together."
As everyone is aware by now, the Vikings have three options with Cousins, a talented quarterback who puts up great numbers but doesn't elevate teams and create victories at the level you'd like from someone with his contract. They can keep him under the final year of his deal in 2022, which would mean taking on a $45 million cap hit unless the contract is restructured with void years. They can extend him, which would lower his current cap hit and keep him in Minnesota for another few years. Or they could look to trade him, which seems like the least likely option at this point.
"Ultimately, with all these things, you have options," Adofo-Mensah said. "Just like they have options. And ultimately we're trying to do the best thing for us. All these things are uncertain — how he's going to play, what's the market going to be, all these things, this puzzle. And ultimately you're just trying to answer it not knowing today what's going to happen. So I wish I could tell you for certain. Everything's in play and I hate to be that general, but everything's in play with every player."
There's no doubt that Cousins is a talented, accurate, and intelligent quarterback. Expecting the Vikings to find someone better than him in 2022 is unrealistic, and they seem to really believe that he'll have a chance to play great football under O'Connell. But does that mean they feel a need to extend him and commit to paying him top dollar for several more years? That's the question.
"To win at the highest level, it's pretty hard to do it without good quarterback play," Adofo-Mensah said. "So globally, that question needs to be answered. Now does it need to be answered this year versus the next five years? It's trying to be smart about how you try to answer that question generally to sustain success in the NFL. But again, he's under contract, Kirk's our quarterback. He's a really good player. I think he's going to play at a high level for us given all the things Kevin wants to do with him, so we're excited about that. We're not doing more than that, we're not doing less than that. That's just where we're trying to put a championship team around him that's both sides of the ball and we're excited about doing it."
There are a ton of factors to consider, and that's Adofo-Mensah's job. He's evaluating every aspect of this roster and the salary cap as he goes about trying to build a sustainable Super Bowl contender.
What that ends up meaning for Cousins remains unclear. It still seems like he'll be the Vikings' quarterback in 2022, but beyond that is anyone's guess.
As an interesting, related note, Adofo-Mensah pushed back against the idea that this quarterback draft class is a weak one. He and other Vikings representatives spent time with some of the QBs on Monday and came away impressed.
"It's funny, I just had a conversation with somebody about that," he said. "I would probably go back and ask people what they thought about Mahomes and Watson's class [in 2017]. I thought they said the same thing. You always want to be open minded. .... you're just guessing. You're predicting. We have information today and you watch a player and then you see in five years what they are like. Those things don't always line up. People come through, they improve their mechanics, they get different coaching, they get in different schemes that fit their skillsets. I'm not going to sit here and stamp that this isn't a great quarterback class because I see a lot of good stuff on film from these guys."
One thing is clear: the ride that is this offseason is just getting started.
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