Make no mistake about it, this is the true dawn of a brand new era. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell are turning this team over in their image.
The Minnesota Vikings front office is making a clear statement. We are moving forward in our own vision, The Spielman/Zimmer era is over. It's the Kwesi/Kevin era
— Tyler Forness (@TheRealForno) March 10, 2023
The mainstays of the last decade are slowly on their way out. Eric Kendricks was released on Monday followed by Adam Thielen and Cameron Dantzler Sr. on Friday. The Vikings likely aren’t done either with more players likely on their way out before the Vikings hit free agency.
Over the course of the last eight weeks, we have learned quite a bit about how Adofo-Mensah is starting to shape this team. Here are the four biggest takeaways.
Tanking is out of the question
When Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell got hired last offseason, there were numerous fans and pundits that wanted the Vikings to tear it down to the studs and do a full rebuild. That was never going to be the case and it was made clear from the start.
The Wilf’s made it clear when they held a press conference after relieving Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman of their duties that they wanted to win and not take a step back. That came to fruition when they hired Adofo-Mensah over Ryan Poles.
In fact, Adofo-Mensah referenced that in his press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine.
“People always talk, like, ‘Just tank. In this sport, I think that’s kind of unconscionable to do with what these players put on the line for our sport, our enjoyment, all of those things.”
That’s what makes all of these moves so intriguing. What is the vision here?
Continuing to establish the culture
The Vikings made massive strides this past year in terms of building a culture. What the Vikings had under Zimmer had turned sour very quickly. In just one year, the Vikings ended up ranking first overall in the inaugural NFLPA team report cards.
They continued to add to that culture with the hire of Brian Flores.
“I can’t say enough great things about that addition. It’s not just the football mind, which is special, as I talked about when we got our list together,” said Adofo-Mensah. I’m always going to be a numbers guy, so I’m always going to go look at the results of his defenses and they played a lot of good, efficient football with a lot of young players and that’s something that really drew us to him. And then you talk about the leader, how passionate he is. He fits so well in our culture where our culture is positivity, it’s passionate, and he fits really well into that. We need the leader, we need the football mind, we need the developer and we also need the personnel guy. He has a really extensive personnel background, so it’s not just about the players we draft this year or in free agency, it’s about reshaping our vision for the roster going forward, not just to compete in today’s NFL, but where it could go. He’s the type of thinker that I need, combined with Kevin [O’Connell], that’ll help us do that.”
This team knows how to win
We’ve all heard about the Vikings’ DVOA not coming close to matching their 13-4 record. Yes, the 2022 Vikings weren’t a true contender as their 31-24 loss to the New York Giants in the wild card round proved. What the season did do for the Vikings is it showed the team that they could win.
Even with the Vikings losing players due to salary cap constraints, they are ready to replace them with those who played mainly special teams.
“We had a really great special teams unit partly comprised of those young players that we have,” said Adofo-Mensah. “And then ultimately at some point they will have to take on bigger roles and that’s all part of the competitive rebuild and all things that we try to factor in.”
Adofo Mensah also spoke about the one-score wins, speaking to their mastery of situational football.
“Another answer that could probably take a long time. Yes, I do think, again, we talked about when we got here looking at the team last year vs. this year and the ways we could improve. We talked about being situational masters, which, again, if you look at the results, end of half, end of game, year after year, those are the things that we planned to be better at and we did. So I think those things are repeatable, but when you talk about one-score games vs. not, I don’t always neces- sarily look at that because a one-score game that you have the ball and could have scored or something like that, those things end up being a little bit different. We can very easily play in less onescore games and have the same record next year, right, those are all things that I’ve considered. So ultimately, our job is again to put together a talent threshold to win a championship, have our part that fit together, we don’t necessarily look at one-score games, results, things like that. But I think it’s the way you play that might end up causing those things and ultimately that’s our job to look over those things and study them in the offseason.”
With the team and staff figuring out how to win, bringing in new faces won’t change that when the core is ready to rock.
Gearing up for 2024
The moves that the Vikings have made are ones that some analysts argued that they should have made last year. That wasn’t entirely possible with the directive from the Wilf’s that they needed to be competitive and win football games. They went 13-4 and posted some of, if not the worst underlying metrics for a 13-win team in the history of the NFL.
What changed for 2023? The salary cap and culture. They ran it back with mostly the same players from the Spielman/Zimmer era and tried to make it work, but this core is not going to compete for a chapionship. It needs some serious re-tooling. Guys like Thielen and Kendricks weren’t going to play a major role for this team anymore and were let go due to their salary cap hits.
Why is 2024 so important? The Vikings have been telling us as such. By cutting Thielen and taking the entire $13+ million cap hit this year instead of splitting it up with a post-June 1st designation. With Harrison Smith potentially joining him, that would fall all on this year as well. As of now, the Vikings have slightly more than $120 million in projected cap space for 2024. That can be used for Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw and Danielle Hunter and still have around $50 million to play with to sign free agents and other potential extensions.
It also happens to be when Kirk Cousins is a free agent. There has been a lot of scuttlebutt about whether he will sign an extention. All current indications are that he will play out the final year of his current contract. Things are always subject to change, as the situation is currently unresolved.
The situation with Cousins could also lead the Vikings to move up for a quarterback and that could convince Cousins to waive his no-trade clause. This situation is going to be the one to watch, and will be made with 2024 in mind.
