Scoggins: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s draft failures led to Vikings GM’s ouster

Vikings ownership tried something unorthodox, something so out-of-the-blue that it was either going to work brilliantly or land with a thud. Hiring a former Wall Street broker to oversee football operations for an NFL team offered no middle ground.

The answer came Friday, Jan. 30, in an announcement that was stunning in timing but not in practicality.

The Vikings fired General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah after four seasons and no playoff wins, and only eight months after giving him a multiyear extension.

Co-owner Mark Wilf offered mostly generalities about the decision but noted his family did not feel “comfortable” or “confident” keeping Adofo-Mensah in his post.

“We have an urgency to create a winning football team,” Wilf said.

The Vikings’ owners often spoke admirably about Adofo-Mensah’s spirit of collaboration. That’s all well and good, but results are ultimately what matters.

Adofo-Mensah’s résumé as a talent evaluator and roster architect simply included too many draft mistakes. The scarcity of true impact players acquired via the draft forced the organization to rely heavily on free agency to fill holes, which is neither an ideal nor sustainable blueprint because it’s expensive and the roster skews older.

The Wilfs didn’t become billionaires by being bad at business. They must have felt like they were sold a lemon.

Adofo-Mensah’s plan compelled ownership to commit more than $300 million to free agents last offseason under the premise that the team would be equipped to contend.

Not only did the Vikings fail to make the playoffs, Adofo-Mensah miscalculated the quarterback situation, along with head coach Kevin O’Connell, assuming O’Connell had a voice in the dynamics of that position.

The Wilfs watched Sam Darnold lead the Vikings to 14 wins and a playoff berth last season. The front office opted to let Darnold walk, whiffed on re-signing Daniel Jones as a bridge quarterback and put the offense in J.J. McCarthy’s hands when he clearly needed more development time.

Wilf said that ownership evaluated Adofo-Mensah’s entire tenure and that his dismissal was not tied to “any one decision or move.”

Adofo-Mensah was always viewed as an outsider infiltrating the NFL’s insulated world. He didn’t fit the profile of a “football guy.” That was never going to be an easy hurdle to clear when surrounded by coaches and scouts who have sacrificed and invested their entire lives to reach that career pinnacle.

Rumors of tension between the front office and coaching staff behind the scenes are being reported, but nothing ever spilled into public view. Wilf was asked multiple questions about whether owners found discord between Adofo-Mensah and the coaching staff. He called the firing “100 percent an ownership decision.”

“No one was suggesting, ‘Kwesi this or Kwesi that,’ ” Wilf said. “We are in touch with everyone in the building, sensing the dynamic, how people work together. It’s a good collaborative situation. People get along here. It’s strictly a professional decision on where we think the dynamic was best going forward. Yes, we got input from everybody, but nobody said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to fire.’ As ownership, we said, ‘We’re not satisfied, we need to be better as an organization, and this is the direction we have to go.’ ”

Protracted contract negotiations between ownership and Adofo-Mensah last offseason gave the impression that something was amiss. O’Connell signed a multiyear extension days after the Vikings’ playoff loss to the Rams. Adofo-Mensah downplayed the absence of news in his own negotiations as months passed, but the optics invited skepticism that not everything and everyone were aligned.

The timing of his firing is odd given the Vikings played their final game on Jan. 4. Wilf mentioned being methodical in conducting a season-ending analysis, but the decision can be boiled down to a simple thought: Adofo-Mensah couldn’t be trusted to oversee another draft. A very important draft considering the number of picks the Vikings have and their need to inject young impact players into the roster.

Not only did Adofo-Mensah make a trade with a division foe (Detroit), he passed up the chance to take Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton, who has become a star, in favor of Cine, who is now playing in the UFL.