We’re more than a year and a half into the new regime of Minnesota Vikings football, and only half of the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah/Kevin O’Connell partnership has gone as expected. The former Super Bowl champion offensive coordinator with the Los Angeles Rams took the 11-personnel that he learned under Sean McVay and immediately put it into action for Justin Jefferson and the rest of the Vikings offense. While it hasn’t exactly gone as planned as Year 2, O’Connell is the same head coach who helped lead an inaugural 13-win campaign and earned a divisional title.
Although there wasn’t a universal expectation for Adofo-Mensah as Minnesota’s GM. But conventional wisdom led me to believe that after spending seven years with the San Francisco 49ers and working under multiple general managers and head coaches, he would at least attempt to replicate the blueprint that he helped build the Niners into a perennial NFL powerhouse. Adofo-Mensah first entered the league as San Francisco’s manager of football research and development in 2013. Once Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch stepped into the big chairs in 2017, they promoted Adofo-Mensah to director of football research and development.
After Jim Harbaugh‘s exit from San Francisco following the 2014 season, the 49ers went through a four-year lull, winning six-or-fewer games from 2015 to 2018. But the Niners were slowly building the foundation of what would ultimately result in the game’s best defense. Starting in 2015, San Francisco used first-round picks on defensive linemen in five of the next six drafts.
- 2015 — defensive tackle Arik Armstead, 17th overall
- 2016 — defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, seventh overall
- 2017 — defensive end Solomon Thomas, third overall
- 2019 — defensive end Nick Bosa, second overall
- 2020 — defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, 14th overall
Adofo-Mensah was in the building and played a role in these respective draft day decisions. Aside from Thomas and Kinlaw, the remaining three of those first-round picks played a pivotal role in turning the league’s worst defense in 2016 to a top-10 unit in 2019 and NFC champions that season. Shortly after the 2020 draft, Adofo-Mensah joined the Cleveland Browns as their VP of football operations. But by that point, the 49ers had already built their defensive machine. The talking heads can’t spew out Jimmy Garoppolo and/or Brock Purdy‘s respective records as starting quarterbacks in San Francisco fast enough. But the actual reason why the 49ers continue to win at such a high level is because of their sustained defensive dominance. And they’ve continued to adhere to the same philosophy since Adofo-Mensah left in May 2020.
You can never have too many game wreckers up front.
Despite spending their top resources in the draft on its defensive front, the 49ers supplement their game wreckers by way of free agency and trades. On the opening day of free agency last March, San Francisco signed defensive tackle Javon Hargrave to a four-year, $84 million deal. And two weeks ago they acquired edge rusher Randy Gregory from the Denver Broncos. In Gregory’s first game as a Niner last week in Cleveland, the former Nebraska Cornhusker recorded a sack and generated three pressures on 12 pass rushes.
Imagine if O’Connell, coming off a Super Bowl championship with the Rams in 2021, decided he had a better way of doing things offensively once the Vikings hired him as head coach. What if he scrapped the 11-personnel scheme for something completely different? That’s what Adofo-Mensah is doing with his roster construction on the defensive side of the ball. Instead of implementing his own version of San Francisco’s blueprint — which is precisely what O’Connell is doing with his Rams background — Adofo-Mensah has gone rogue from this tried and true philosophy that he helped build.
Let’s circle back to the 2022 draft, Adofo-Mensah’s first as Vikings GM. Minnesota had the 12th-overall spot. Former national champion, Chuck Bednarik Award, Outland Trophy, and unanimous All-American Georgia Bulldog defensive tackle Jordan Davis was staring Adofo-Mensah square in the face. It would have been a textbook 49ers pick of yesteryear to immediately plug a certified game wrecker smack dab into the middle of his brand-new Vikings defense. But Adofo-Mensah said to hell with the 49er way, I’m trading down to get a safety by the name of Lewis Cine. Once Brad Holmes and the Detroit Lions selected Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams after trading up with the Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman wisely traded up for the 13th pick and selected Davis.
Philadelphia paired Davis with Jalen Carter in this year’s draft, forming arguably the best interior defensive line in the league for the foreseeable future.
How about the 2023 draft? At 23rd, the Vikings had every opportunity to select five eventual first-rounders:
- Defensive tackle Mazi Smith (26th to the Dallas Cowboys)
- Edge rusher Myles Murphy (28th to the Cincinnati Bengals)
- Defensive tackle Bryan Bresee (29th to the New Orleans Saints)
- Edge rusher Nolan Smith (30th to the Eagles)
- And edge rusher Felix Anudike-Uzomah (31st to the Kansas City Chiefs)
Instead, the Vikings opted for a luxury pick with Jordan Addison as their WR2 to replace Adam Thielen. The early returns on Addison have been extremely encouraging. Still, it’s another example of Adofo-Mensah straying from what helped turn San Francisco into the heavyweight they’ve become.
By forgoing the initial opportunities to lean into his former 49er ways in the 2022 and 2023 drafts, Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings are seriously behind the eight ball for upcoming years. With Kirk Cousins on the final year of his contract, the Vikings will be tempted to spend their first-round pick in the upcoming 2024 draft on a quarterback. What happens if Minnesota finds themselves in a situation where they deem it necessary to trade up for a particular signal caller? The asking prices in those scenarios more often than not require parting ways with a future first round pick (or two).
Danielle Hunter and his one-year contract are rumored to be a hot commodity throughout the league as the trade deadline approaches (just ask Rick Spielman). Oft-injured edge rusher Marcus Davenport is on a one-year deal. The thought of Minnesota’s defensive front as early as next season is downright terrifying — and for all the wrong reasons. The issue only gets compounded if the Vikings part with future first-round picks to trade up for a quarterback like Drake Maye or Caleb Williams.
Monday night’s matchup against the 49ers should serve as a reminder. To build a defense that can eventually become one of (if not the) the best in the league, it requires an overwhelming commitment to spending top resources on your defensive front. One solid pick or one plus-move in free agency doesn’t come close to being enough. Lynch and Shanahan will be the first to tell you that. And that’s who Adofo-Mensah spent three years working under before eventually becoming the Vikings’ GM.
But you’d have no idea that Adofo-Mensah spent seven years with the 49ers if you’re just going off how he’s built Minnesota’s defense thus far.
