Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah Wants to 'Live in Today and Tomorrow' This Offseason
One of the things former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman was criticized for over the last couple years of his tenure was the way he attempted to straddle the line between contending and rebuilding.
Following an emphatic divisional round loss to the 49ers in January 2020, Spielman and the Vikings had an opportunity to recognize that their window of contention — one that opened back in 2015 — was probably closed. They were in a difficult salary cap situation and had a number of expensive veterans who were getting up there in age. But instead of opting for a rebuild, Spielman and Mike Zimmer — perhaps knowing that their seats were getting hot, perhaps with the team's ownership influencing their mindset — attempted to retool the roster instead.
During the 2020 offseason, the Vikings lost their No. 1 wide receiver, three starting cornerbacks, and two starting defensive linemen. They simultaneously extended Kirk Cousins, franchise-tagged a safety, and signed a replacement nose tackle to a big contract. Right before the season started, they made a win-now trade for a defensive end. They attempted to fill glaring holes at cornerback and on the offensive line with rookies and career backups.
The approach failed miserably. No one could've predicted that COVID-19 would cause Michael Pierce to opt out or that Danielle Hunter and Anthony Barr would suffer season-ending injuries, but those three players wouldn't have solved everything anyways. The Vikings had one of the worst defenses in the NFL and finished 7-9.
Then Spielman did the exact same thing during the 2021 offseason; he tried to build a playoff-contending roster while also having an eye on the future. The Vikings attempted to fix the defense with a bunch of one-year deals for veterans, they drafted a left tackle in the first round to replace the one they lost in free agency, and they drafted a bunch of raw, developmental prospects in the middle rounds. There was no clear and apparent direction or identity to their moves.
It failed again, with the defense improving only slightly and the 8-9 Vikings missing the playoffs for the third time in four years with Cousins at quarterback. The Wilfs had seen enough, deciding to fire Spielman and Zimmer and replace them with the young, analytical, collaboration-minded duo of Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell.
The Vikings now have leadership in place that is the complete opposite of Spielman and Zimmer. They completely overhauled their coaching staff, replaced their longtime head athletic trainer, and brought new voices into the front office. They talked about changing the culture and building through communication and collaboration.
And then — at least in year one — they took the same team-building approach that got the previous regime fired.
Instead of hitting the reset button on a mediocre team with a difficult salary cap situation, the new-look Vikings are operating much like the old Vikings did. Adofo-Mensah extended Cousins and locked in other older veterans like Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen with contract restructures. He signed Za'Darius Smith, Harrison Phillips, and Jordan Hicks to revamp the defense. More moves are coming, but the Vikings have made it very clear that they plan on running it back this season. Once again, it's worth wondering how much of that approach is a directive from an ownership group that wants to maintain competitiveness and relevance.
"We're all aligned on what our vision is and how we see the needs of our team this year, next year and overall our whole time horizon," Adofo-Mensah said on Wednesday. "I think when people look at teams they sometimes do it in a very binary way. And they ask, 'Are you either all-in or tearing down and rebuilding?' And I don't really look at the world that way. The way we look at it is we're trying to navigate both worlds, we're trying to live in today and tomorrow, or the competitive rebuild, however you want to phrase it or market it, and so I think that's kind of how we've approached this offseason and our time horizons going forward."
Sound familiar? The focus on collaborative processes might be new, but the overall approach of a "competitive rebuild" isn't. The Vikings are loading up to contend in 2022 while also trying to maintain flexibility and keep an eye towards the future.
"You try to be solutions-oriented with everything you have," Adofo-Mensah said. "You have challenges from all sides. Players have needs, we have needs, just trying to do the best you can for all parties involved. Sometimes that involves doing nothing, staying in the same place, coming back and [saying] ‘Let’s be great together’ and we’ll figure out things after that. It’s just being really smart and empirical and probabilistic about what the outcome will be, what will the needs be and when will it come. This exercise, it’s not perfect. It’s part art and part science. But we’re just intentional about what we do and we’re open to the fact that things we do are uncertain."
It's true that most teams operate somewhere between an all-in approach and a full rebuild. Still, the risk of living in that middle ground is ending up with mediocrity. That's what happened to the Vikings in each of the last two years. And by taking this approach, the Vikings are running that risk once more.
At Wednesday's press conference, Adofo-Mensah was asked by a reporter how the Vikings will make sure they don't get stuck in the middle.
"That’s a great question," he said. "One of the people I’ve become close with over the years is [former 76ers GM] Sam Hinkie, obviously when he inherited that 76ers team, people kind of thought that they were that way, that 8th seed in the Eastern Conference, kind of mired in a place of mediocrity. Football is a little different deal, it’s more of a team sport. You don’t need that one transcendent player to become great. But, to your point, it's just about adding great players, great pieces around the core that we have. And there's ways to do that, there's ways to do that in free agency or the draft or the trade market or player development. ... There's no fear of a problem as long as you understand the depths of the problem and, really, how to solve it."
It would be entirely unfair and misguided to write off the 2022 Vikings already. There's more to come in free agency, there's the draft in a month, and there's a whole offseason of preparation ahead. If the Vikings can add to their cornerback room, boost the interior offensive line, and improve their overall depth via free agents, draft picks, and young players taking strides, this roster could be quite impressive on paper. The high-end talent is certainly there, and it's difficult to criticize the team for keeping and adding good football players.
Maybe the issues of the past two seasons had a lot to do with coaching and culture. Maybe the results can be different with O'Connell and new coordinators and new position coaches leading the way, teaching new schemes. The Vikings have talked about winning on the margins, and it's entirely possible that a new coaching staff and a tweaked roster can turn some of the close losses from 2021 into victories this season. Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell deserve plenty of time to implement their vision and see if it works.
However, I disagree with one specific thing Adofo-Mensah said on Wednesday: "you don’t need that one transcendent player to become great." In the NFL, the easiest way to become great is to find a transcendent quarterback. The Vikings don't have that right now, and they chose to continue paying a lot of money for someone who is merely above-average at the position. At the end of the day, everything they do comes back to Kirk Cousins and whether or not he's capable of winning a Super Bowl.
Much like the previous regime did in 2020 and 2021, the Vikings are currently attempting to reload a roster that has a polarizing quarterback and some glaring holes at specific positions. It didn't work for Spielman. Maybe it'll work for Adofo-Mensah — which could lead to an opportunity to go all-in at some point. Or maybe the Vikings' mediocrity will persist, and he'll eventually decide to swing the pendulum in the other direction and try something completely new.
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