When the Minnesota Vikings decided to hire Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as their next general manager, it raised eyebrows.
After having Rick Spielman be a major voice in the front office for 16 years, the approach was always from a traditional football standpoint. It brought mixed results during his tenure with some incredible hits in players like Adrian Peterson, Justin Jefferson and the entire 2015 NFL Draft. It also resulted in misses like Christian Ponder, Jeff Gladney and Chris Cook.
Once Adofo-Mensah took over, the process changed. Unlike with Spielman, Adofo-Mensah gets a lot of criticism, more so than others in his position. Why is that?
Why Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is criticized so heavily
The discussion surrounding Adofo-Mensah is fascinating. Outside of Sashi Brown who did the Moneyball approach for the Cleveland Browns before John Dorsey took over during the 2017 season, there hadn't been an "analytical" general manager before. Adofo-Mensah wasn't just that, he didn't even come from the football world but rather from the world of Wall Street.
As a former stock market trader, Adofo-Mensah understands value and how to get it. Once he ended up in the world of football, the process of getting value is different but still the same. It's getting that value that is important but unlike with Rick Spielman's constant trade downs, the hope was that Adofo-Mensah would get value by going forward instead of just backward.
If Adofo-Mensah is prioritizing value with his moves, why is he seeing so much criticism?
Unfair criticism
There are people who want to see Adofo-Mensah fail. Why? If he has a lot of success, then traditional football people could lose out on opportunities for the top front office job in the National Football League.
Because of this, Adofo-Mensah has been receiving unfair criticism with some being too harsh. The best example is the trade-up for edge rusher Dallas Turner. Right away, analysts started in on the attack by claiming two trades up for Turner that resulted in a loss of a first-round pick of value by some trade charts.
- The trade-up to get pick 23 wasn't for Turner
- Combining the two without properly identifying the root cause is lazy criticism
The one thing you could critique Adofo-Mensah for was misevaluating the market for a quarterback. They got J.J. McCarthy by moving up just one spot and giving up picks 129 and 167 while getting 203 back in return. Now, they did want Drake Maye out of North Carolina more than they wanted McCarthy, hence the capital. They wanted to be prepared to get their guy if they had the chance.
How much of that did we see with the criticism of Adofo-Mensah's draft? Not much at all. The discussion was all about how much capital they gave up in draft picks but not the value of the player the Vikings selected. Only talking about the draft capital but not the player wasn't fair.
Turner was the ninth-ranked player on the consensus board and the Vikings got him at 17th overall. When you are talking about the difference between the ninth and 17th overall players, that's significant. It can be what separates a player who makes a Pro Bowl versus an All-Pro.
One of the interesting things about getting the ninth-ranked player at 17th overall is the value they saved by not having to move up to ninth overall. It's a theoretical exercise but important when discussing the value proposition.
- Analytical charts are mostly a wash
- Rich Hill trade chart had a gain of the 59th overall pick
- Jimmy Johnson trade chart had a gain of the 50th overall pick
Now, these are just looking at the move from 23 and not including the move up to 23 because they are separate transactions that should be viewed as separate.
There was also the compensatory pick fiasco that happened after the Vikings signed Shaquill Griffin to a one-year contract. That sent a lot of Vikings fans on a rampage of frustration since they now weren't slated to get a second third-round compensatory pick. However, they weren't expecting to get one because of how void years are now factoring into contracts. Adofo-Mensah got way too much criticism across the media for signing a player who is in line to start for the team this year at cornerback.
When have you seen a general manager get criticized for potentially losing a comp pick for signing a starter? It's crazy that Adofo-Mensah has been criticized like this. However, the extreme criticism doesn't mean that Adofo-Mensah's philosophies will work nor that he shouldn't get any criticism. If Turner doesn't work out, the criticism will only grow, same with not prioritizing the defensive line when it was already poor this past offseason.
Adofo-Mensah also appears to be using different data for their player analysis. GPS tracking data is becoming more and more prevalent in player analysis and the trends point to that being how Adofo-Mensah is evaluating players.
Why is Adofo-Mensah getting that much criticism? The reality is this: Adofo-Mensah's approach is disrupting the world of football and upsetting the industry because his background is different. Another GM, say Ryan Poles who is a traditional football executive who has had the job the same amount of time as Adofo-Mensah, would not be getting the same criticism that Adofo-Mensah is getting. It's not too dissimilar to Bill James in the world of baseball. Everyone shunned him for years until the entire league embraced his philosophies.
Adofo-Mensah's approach and style could become a paradigm shift in the world of football and anytime you disrupt an industry, the haters will come out in full force.
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