Kwesi Fired

[Vanimal46]

 

[Vanimal46]

The Wild and Wolves GMs better keep their head on a swivel today 

[Aggies7]

WHO’S NEXT NOBODY IS SAFE!

[Aggies7]

14 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

The Wild and Wolves GMs better keep their head on a swivel today 

Gophers AD sweating it out 

[Vanimal46]

All of this talk about “collaboration” from Kwesi and KOC. Whelp, when push comes to shove you need a real leader when adversity hits. 

[gunnarthor]

Wow. Bummer. I liked him. This article seems like it's about the Darnold decision. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/vikings-fire-gm-kwesi-adofo-mensah-after-4-seasons-174644176.html

[The Great Hambino]

Apparently Brzezinski will run the draft.  Does KOC ascend to the dual role?

[Vanimal46]

2 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Wow. Bummer. I liked him. This article seems like it's about the Darnold decision. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/vikings-fire-gm-kwesi-adofo-mensah-after-4-seasons-174644176.html

When you let a guy like that walk out of the building for nothing in return, that’s pretty damning. 

No offense, but I’ll never understand why you liked him. I was good with trying an unorthodox hire, but it was crystal clear he was terrible at the draft. 

[Aggies7]

5 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Wow. Bummer. I liked him. This article seems like it's about the Darnold decision. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/vikings-fire-gm-kwesi-adofo-mensah-after-4-seasons-174644176.html

Of course it is lol Seattle winning was the absolute worst case scenario for him. Literally what are the odds you let a guy walk out the door and he brings his new team to the Super Bowl in the very next year? Has that EVER happened? Maybe it’s happened before but I can’t think of who it was.

[gunnarthor]

1 minute ago, The Great Hambino said:

Apparently Brzezinski will run the draft.  Does KOC ascend to the dual role?

Triangle of authority part II. 

[The Great Hambino]

3 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Of course it is lol this was the absolute worst case scenario for him. Literally what are the odds you let a guy walk out the door and he brings his new team to the Super Bowl in the very next year? Has that EVER happened? Maybe it’s happened before but I can’t think of who it was.

Dilfer, but a well-trained golden retriever could've won the Super Bowl with that defense

I know golden retrievers are better known for their receiving skills, but you know what I mean

[Aggies7]

2 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

Dilfer, but a well-trained golden retriever could've won the Super Bowl with that defense

I know golden retrievers are better known for their receiving skills, but you know what I mean

I knew there had to be someone lol he only lasted one year in Baltimore too. Wonder if Seattle will hold on to Darnold ? 🤔 

[gunnarthor]

1 minute ago, Vanimal46 said:

When you let a guy like that walk out of the building for nothing in return, that’s pretty damning. 

No offense, but I’ll never understand why you liked him. I was good with trying an unorthodox hire, but it was crystal clear he was terrible at the draft. 

From what is public, I liked him because he took risks and built competent rosters. You wanted the Vikings to get the QBOTF, you've said trade everything to get him. He trades a couple seconds and a sixth to get an extra first rounder in a QB heavy draft. He tries to trade up to get one of the top three. The teams reject the trades. So he trades a 3rd and 4th to move up to get JJ (and another pick which is Reichard). We finally have a GM who makes moves to get the QB that (apparently) his COY wants to build around. 

Now the next GM knows that if he misses on a QB, he's out? Like Speilman was GM for 15 years, was 9 games over .500, made the playoff six times and won 3 playoff games? But Kwesi gits four seasons, a lot more wins, and two playoff appearances but is gone b/c of Darnold? Wilfs reward mediocrity. 

[Vanimal46]

1 minute ago, gunnarthor said:

From what is public, I liked him because he took risks and built competent rosters. You wanted the Vikings to get the QBOTF, you've said trade everything to get him. He trades a couple seconds and a sixth to get an extra first rounder in a QB heavy draft. He tries to trade up to get one of the top three. The teams reject the trades. So he trades a 3rd and 4th to move up to get JJ (and another pick which is Reichard). We finally have a GM who makes moves to get the QB that (apparently) his COY wants to build around. 

Now the next GM knows that if he misses on a QB, he's out? Like Speilman was GM for 15 years, was 9 games over .500, made the playoff six times and won 3 playoff games? But Kwesi gits four seasons, a lot more wins, and two playoff appearances but is gone b/c of Darnold? Wilfs reward mediocrity. 

It's his draft history as a whole, not just the McCarthy decision. Which was completely wrong as it is. We've shown you these stats over and over again. Kwesi's drafts have been terrible.

 

[gunnarthor]

Just now, Vanimal46 said:

It's his draft history as a whole, not just the McCarthy decision. Which was completely wrong as it is. We've shown you these stats over and over again. Kwesi's drafts have been terrible.

 

Sure, and I'm sure the next GM won't trade picks for players, we can go back to the Speilman style and hope for better results. But we had a GM who constructed some pretty good rosters. But when you complain about the lack of drafted players, it means you discount the other values that picks have. We got Hockenson and two 4th rounders (eventually traded to become Ward and part of the deal to get JJ and Riechard) for a 2nd (and 6th?). A 6th to get Mason. etc And you ignore the success of undrafted free agents. And then you overvalue the expectation of picks. The reality is that most picks, especially outside the top 100 fail. The key was the overall roster construction. And we just had the most successful four year run in something like 25 or thirty years. 

The next GM - who won't have a say in this draft - will hopefully get us a Super Bowl but it's a shame Kwesi seemed to be held to a much different standard than Speilman was. 

[nicksaviking]

I'm sure the impetus to fire him is the Sam Darnold decision, but it really should have been due to not being able to build a sustainable team through the draft.

With Darnold, we really had three choices, let him walk, franchise him or extend him. Hindsight says franchising him was the right call, but I'd still not have wanted that extension. He's a good QB but he's not great. We'd still be in the same kind of Kirk Cousins purgatory if Darnold was here on a three year deal.

[nicksaviking]

10 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

The next GM - who won't have a say in this draft - will hopefully get us a Super Bowl but it's a shame Kwesi seemed to be held to a much different standard than Speilman was. 

No he wasn't, we had all been complaining about Speilman's stockpiling of late round picks for years. I don't think anyone here was upset when Speilman was fired.

If you're going to trade some of your picks for players who are expensive, like Hockenson, that means you have to be 100% sure you can make up the financial discrepancy with cheap players you get with your remaining picks. He couldn't do that. This team had to do way too much heavy lifting in free agency, and that wasn't and will never be sustainable. You have to build through the draft and if you don't have enough picks to do that, then you need to stop trading them. Use your picks to draft a cheap Hockenson or Mason instead. 

 

[Danchat]

Wow, I need time to process all that is happening in the land of Minnesota sports. I really thought Kwesi was safe for at least one more year given his extension.

Not sure what "relationship issues" refers to, whether it be with the rest of the front office or a Gersson Rosas situation, but it seems like that accelerated the firing process. Because even with his bad drafts and several blunders over the 2025 offseason,  I thought he was safe.

[Vanimal46]

17 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Sure, and I'm sure the next GM won't trade picks for players, we can go back to the Speilman style and hope for better results. But we had a GM who constructed some pretty good rosters.

Those pretty good rosters got us in the same exact spot we were in with Spielman when he got fired. Full of expensive veterans, and now we got to dig ourselves out of $50 million over the cap. Again, I was hoping the unorthodox hire would inspire some money ball type of decisions. Kwesi just couldn't figure out the draft, which is the literal lifeblood of any successful organization. He relied way too much on free agency to dig himself out of the massive hole he made by whiffing on a majority of the young talent over 4 years. 

[Parfigliano]

Bad drafts=bad at job=fired.  Not hard to understand.

[gunnarthor]

11 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

No he wasn't, we had all been complaining about Speilman's stockpiling of late round picks for years. I don't think anyone here was upset when Speilman was fired.

If you're going to trade some of your picks for players who are expensive, like Hockenson, that means you have to be 100% sure you can make up the financial discrepancy with cheap players you get with your remaining picks. He couldn't do that. This team had to do way too much heavy lifting in free agency, and that wasn't and will never be sustainable. You have to build through the draft and if you don't have enough picks to do that, then you need to stop trading them. Use your picks to draft a cheap Hockenson or Mason instead. 

 

Even if your statement was true, which it isn't, I would have liked him to get a chance to show that his rosters weren't sustainable. But he didn't get that. Sounds like there were some inter-office issues that were also a problem. It could be that he was like "no, we're not keeping Darnold" over the wishes of the coaching staff or some other thing, as well, of course. And that would make some sense. 

[nicksaviking]

*****Moderator Note*****

Hate to do that in this forum as it's mostly the same faces, but back to the shocking news. The tangent posts were removed to get us better back on track.

[Vanimal46]

My initial thoughts now, since we won't have a new GM prior to FA or the draft, is go with status quo through the 2026 season. Rob B will have the interim GM label handling the numbers like usual. I'd say let KOC be the true leader and try to get us out of this mess. Since, let's be honest, if McCarthy doesn't improve, or the team doesn't improve enough to win a playoff game, he's going to be out too after the season. 

Then we can start 2027 with a new GM and new HC 

[LewFordLives]

This is what gets an NFL GM fired..... Spending piles of money for a "win now" type roster and handing the QB position to someone who has never played in a regular season game.

[Vanimal46]

9 minutes ago, LewFordLives said:

This is what gets an NFL GM fired..... Spending piles of money for a "win now" type roster and handing the QB position to someone who has never played in a regular season game.

Handing it to a raw QB prospect who missed all of the previous season due to a knee injury. Plus, a raw QB prospect who rarely had to throw the ball in order for his college team to win. 

[TheLeviathan]

Many things can be true at the same time:

* KAM was put in a crappy spot to have to try and be competitive with a roster that needed to be blown up when he was hired.  This forced a lot of decisions that may not have happened if he hadn't had those constraints.

* They have had a couple good free agent groups

* He made the right decision to get a young QB.  Whether he chose the right one is TBD.

But what got him fired is simple:

* Despite what one person on this planet believes - his draft track record is just awful.  Whomever takes the job after him is going to have a steep hill to climb filling the holes left by 4 years of bad drafting.

* The most impactful players on this team were free agents or drafted by Rick Spielman.  Rick Spielman who was shown the door an eternity ago in NFL years.

[nicksaviking]

37 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

My initial thoughts now, since we won't have a new GM prior to FA or the draft, is go with status quo through the 2026 season. Rob B will have the interim GM label handling the numbers like usual. I'd say let KOC be the true leader and try to get us out of this mess. Since, let's be honest, if McCarthy doesn't improve, or the team doesn't improve enough to win a playoff game, he's going to be out too after the season. 

Then we can start 2027 with a new GM and new HC 

I'd guess KOC keeps his job. Not an endorsement, just my presumption. Somehow this disaster of an offense finished over .500 last year. Even if McCarthy is the starter week 1 and is never any good, just knowing his limitations is going to set the Vikings up to be a better team than they were last year.

Also, I think firing the OL coach is going to show to be a significantly bigger deal than anyone would ever assume.

[TheLeviathan]

40 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

My initial thoughts now, since we won't have a new GM prior to FA or the draft, is go with status quo through the 2026 season. Rob B will have the interim GM label handling the numbers like usual. I'd say let KOC be the true leader and try to get us out of this mess. Since, let's be honest, if McCarthy doesn't improve, or the team doesn't improve enough to win a playoff game, he's going to be out too after the season. 

Then we can start 2027 with a new GM and new HC 

Is this confirmed?  Maybe they have a GM in mind?

[Vanimal46]

2 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Is this confirmed?  Maybe they have a GM in mind?

They said Rob Brzyzski will be the interim GM through the draft then they’ll do a search afterwards 

[TheLeviathan]

1 minute ago, Vanimal46 said:

They said Rob Brzyzski will be the interim GM through the draft then they’ll do a search afterwards 

Well....that's a choice.