The Minnesota Vikings officially made the hiring of new GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah official on Wednesday night. Thursday morning he addressed the Minnesota media for the first time in an extremely impressive press conference at TCO Performance Center.
Adofo-Mensah’s arrival in Minnesota comes from an untraditional path, but it didn’t feel like that in his introduction on Thursday. His calm, cool and collected presence echoed throughout the field house as he thanked those close to him and answered several questions from the media.
His background in economics and analytics has been one of the main talking points throughout the process, even though he’s not a fan of the term.
“I was in San Francisco and I used to have a picture of Bill Walsh on my desk so anytime I thought I was smart that would be there to humble me. You read about him all the time and that’s who he was,” Adofo-Mensah said in a sit-down interview with the VEN’s Tatum Everett. “There was a very incredible thought and intent into everything he did at practice. How he scheduled practice, the teaching progression for his players. Everything was so detailed and that’s the same thing. It’s a different canvas, but it’s still art. And so, I do it a little different way, but I don’t love to use that word and that’s probably why.”
Although this quote took place prior to his first official press conference, Adofo-Mensah reiterated some of these comments Thursday morning. He brought up the picture of Bill Walsh and discussed how the transition from Wall Street to the NFL is also still art on a different canvas.
Building on the foundation of the current culture is something that Mark Wilf iterated after the firings of Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer. It’s easy to see why Adofo-Mensah fits the mold of the culture the ownership group is seeking.
“I’m the new person in this culture, I want to learn what it is,” Adofo-Mensah said. “That starts with talking with players, members of the front office, and asking them what they want [the culture] to be.”
The word collaboration was also said nearly ten times by Wilf in his press conference a couple weeks ago. This was also discussed today, further showing how Adofo-Mensah will help try and change the culture.
“Whether I say I make the decision or not, it’s always a collaborative process,” Adofo-Mensah said. “You want help with information that covers your blind spots. I’m always seeking the other opinions.”
There will be a lot of talking points up ahead for the Vikings new GM, starting with working to understand the culture in Minnesota. He mentioned that he’s going to meet with the players leadership council immediately after he talked with the media.
A new head coach is also on the horizon in Minnesota, something many fans are anxiously awaiting.
“We’re going to dive into this head coaching search and bring a partner for me and this organization that can lead us to where we need to go,” Adofo-Mensah said. “A coach that I would work with, I would work for.”
Ultimately, he talked about what every Vikings fan wants, and that’s bringing a championship to the state of Minnesota. The job is to win championships, something this state has been deprived of for many decades.
The press conference went extremely well and it’s easy to see why he crushed the interview process. Not to mention Adofo-Mensah looked mighty slick in his purple tie today.
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