The optics are funky due to the Bears hiring Poles. It looks like the snatched the top choice out from under us.
I work in a field that is highly competitive and I do a fair bit of hiring. We get hundreds of applicants with amazing credentials. From initial review of portfolios to actual hire includes about 200-250 hours of work, collectively, for the hiring committee. To say it is labor intensive would be a major understatement. Usually, any of our finalists would be a supremely exceptional choice. I trust that this is the case here too. Sometimes your second choice ends up being a better fit anyways. Let's give it time.
There can be all kinds of other factors too, as you well know.
My wife is CFO of a large company. She needed to hire a new Director of Finance, somebody who would certainly be in the running for CFO when my wife retires. She had so much pressure from a variety of sources, including the Chairman of the Board to hire his hand-picked candidate. When she went with someone else, it caused a rift between the Chairman and the CEO, who had told the Chair that it was inappropriate to try and influence the hire. It was a political mess.
The point here is that the presumptive “No. 1 candidate” in that case would’ve depended on whom you asked.
None of us knows who the No. 1 choice for GM was. Some on the committee may have wanted Poles. Others KAM. But I guarantee you, when asked, they’ll all say it was Mensah.
Yes, the whole process is complex and there are many power dynamics working simultaneously. Your last point is the only thing we know for sure! The more I learn about this guy, the more I like it. The Vikings are exciting again!
My gut says we hire Raheem Morris as HC, Demeco Ryans would be my second bet.
Edit to add:
Cameron Wolfe
@CameronWolfe
Reviews I got about new Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah from 2 NFL front office execs I trust.
“One of the smartest dudes I know.”
“He’s going to kill it. Excellent hire.”
Last edited by Texas Vike on Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:56 pm
There can be all kinds of other factors too, as you well know.
My wife is CFO of a large company. She needed to hire a new Director of Finance, somebody who would certainly be in the running for CFO when my wife retires. She had so much pressure from a variety of sources, including the Chairman of the Board to hire his hand-picked candidate. When she went with someone else, it caused a rift between the Chairman and the CEO, who had told the Chair that it was inappropriate to try and influence the hire. It was a political mess.
The point here is that the presumptive “No. 1 candidate” in that case would’ve depended on whom you asked.
None of us knows who the No. 1 choice for GM was. Some on the committee may have wanted Poles. Others KAM. But I guarantee you, when asked, they’ll all say it was Mensah.
Yes, the whole process is complex and there are many power dynamics working simultaneously. Your last point is the only thing we know for sure! The more I learn about this guy, the more I like it. The Vikings are exciting again!
My gut says we hire Raheem Morris as HC, Demeco Ryans would be my second bet.
Edit to add:
Cameron Wolfe
@CameronWolfe
Reviews I got about new Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah from 2 NFL front office execs I trust.
“One of the smartest dudes I know.”
“He’s going to kill it. Excellent hire.”
Man, I hope these guys are right. It’s been a long four seasons since 2017. We’re like the fans who have everything — stadium, TCO Performance Center, history, great ownership — except a winner.
Texas Vike wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:17 pm
My gut says we hire Raheem Morris as HC, Demeco Ryans would be my second bet.
Paul Allen (KFAN radio Vikings play-by-play guy) on his show today mentioned who he thought they wanted for HC. He is usually plugged in pretty well. Here are his bets for the top 3/4:
1) Nathaniel Hackett. He heard this from a trusted source. Problem is he thinks Denver wants him bad, and if they also make a play for Rodgers that would certainly give them a huge advantage.
2) Kevin O’Connell
3) Either of the Niners coordinators. I hadn’t heard about their offensive coordinator and don’t know his name. I looked him up and he just got promoted to coordinator. So that doesn’t make sense. I probably misunderstood. His reservation on Ryans is that he has only been a coordinator for a year. But definitely has huge upside.
J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:56 pm
There can be all kinds of other factors too, as you well know.
My wife is CFO of a large company. She needed to hire a new Director of Finance, somebody who would certainly be in the running for CFO when my wife retires. She had so much pressure from a variety of sources, including the Chairman of the Board to hire his hand-picked candidate. When she went with someone else, it caused a rift between the Chairman and the CEO, who had told the Chair that it was inappropriate to try and influence the hire. It was a political mess.
The point here is that the presumptive “No. 1 candidate” in that case would’ve depended on whom you asked.
None of us knows who the No. 1 choice for GM was. Some on the committee may have wanted Poles. Others KAM. But I guarantee you, when asked, they’ll all say it was Mensah.
Yes, the whole process is complex and there are many power dynamics working simultaneously. Your last point is the only thing we know for sure! The more I learn about this guy, the more I like it. The Vikings are exciting again!
My gut says we hire Raheem Morris as HC, Demeco Ryans would be my second bet.
Edit to add:
Cameron Wolfe
@CameronWolfe
Reviews I got about new Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah from 2 NFL front office execs I trust.
“One of the smartest dudes I know.”
“He’s going to kill it. Excellent hire.”
I hope your gut is wrong, Morris would be a bad hire
Gotta say, and I only mean this partly disparaging, this thread is hilarious. I mean I know it's our offseason, but.
No clue how fans of a franchise decided they "really wanted Poles", "Bears outfoxed us for Poles", "we got our 2nd choice", etc.
Sorry, but no way in Hades anyone here knows anything about these GM candidates in the context of how well they will do the job in the future for the Vikings. We have no clue what decisions they were involved in for their prior team, we have no idea what their failures were, etc.
Good golly, just admit we don't know squat about how these candidates would have or will pan out - for us or the Bears or the Giants. Next thing you know we'll be slinging opinions on Kwesi's new administrative assistant, and how it appears he/she doesn't have a good enough IT background to solve Microsoft Office issues on the fly.
Gotta relax here folks. None of us will have a clue how good - or bad - of a hire this is until 2024 or later.
This is from the article “40 Under 40” from The Atlantic. Tells more about our new GM than anything I’ve found so far.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, Browns vice president of football operations | Age: 39
Adofo-Mensah doesn’t have a traditional football background — he played basketball at Princeton, earned his MBA at Stanford and worked as a trader on Wall Street before joining the 49ers in a football analytics role in 2013. Yet he was a finalist for the Panthers’ GM job last offseason, and it won’t be surprising if he’s on the short list for other teams’ future openings.
Andrew Berry, the Browns’ 34-year-old general manager, was on this 40 under 40 list last year. He spoke with The Athletic recently about Adofo-Mensah:
When you first met Kwesi at the combine, when you were in Philadelphia and he was in San Francisco, what stuck out to you about him, and what was it about him that made you want to bring him to Cleveland when you got the GM job?
No. 1, it’s his general cognitive abilities. He’s a super, super bright guy, and that comes across within the first two minutes that you meet him. No. 2, and probably just as importantly, it’s just people skills. You could see how he had been able to build relationships across a number of different groups during his time at San Francisco in a role that can be very challenging, because you have to be able to not only develop (analytic) insights, but communicate them and get people to buy in. And then the other thing was just his breadth of understanding of the sport and football operations. So even though he had formally just led the 49ers’ research group, you could tell that he understood team building, people, relationships and managerial skills at a much higher level.
How would you describe his role for you now in Cleveland?
Really, he does everything. He helps me run the day-to-day of the team, across all groups within football operations. But then the other thing is that he’s part of the tighter senior group for all strategic decisions for the team. That’s not just roster or contract management, it’s hiring and staffing, it’s people management, crisis management. Basically, he’s a true assistant GM, and really almost like a miniature version of the general manager’s job responsibilities. And without getting too specific, because he does have a data background, he’s actually added some pretty strong insights to our draft and free-agent modeling with player valuation.
40for60 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:11 pm
It’s really official … the Vikings announced it.
I thought you were talking about hiring Catherine as general assistant manger
Sorry, I should have said I was taking about Kwesi. I have the Vikings app and I got a notification on my phone. I just assumed it was on their website by then.
