There hasn’t been much time to celebrate for newly-hired Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who has been thrown right into the fire of a pivotal head coaching search to replace the recently fired Mike Zimmer.
This job promotion for Adofo-Mensah has taken off like a rocket ship, and he’d do well to buckle up and remain strapped in for the ride of his life.
The list of potential candidates is shrinking by the day with previous interview candidates either signing with other teams or opting to stay in their current situations. And then there are days like Friday, when it was announced that New York Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham would be interviewing for the job.
It’s clearly an ongoing process.
But it’s also a process that Adofo-Mensah seems to have been prepared for from the start. It was revealed at his introductory press conference on Thursday that he has already been “deeply involved” in the team’s search for a head coach.
The fact that the Vikings are hitting the ground running is likely proof that they don’t want to waste a lot of time on this decision. Granted, they’ll make an informed decision after a thorough search, but this is clearly something they don’t want to drag their feet on.
It makes sense considering they started the interview process before Adofo-Mensah was even given a second interview. So they’ve obviously been compiling information and settling in on their favorite candidates by this point.
And a GM like Adofo-Mensah would be okay with that due to his preference for collaborative decision-making.
“Whether I say I make the decision or not, it’s going to be a collaborative process. I’m always about different viewpoints, different ideas,” Adofo-Mensah said at the press conference. “Not to be all algorithms or life, but you find that the best decision-making engines combine information that isn’t related to each other but related to the thing you’re trying to find. …That’s a core belief of mine, and so any decision-making room I’m in, I’m always seeking the other opinion and trying to put everything together and then come out on the other end.”
Names on the list of potential candidates for the Vikings include San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell and Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore
Adofo-Mensah has direct ties to Ryans and O’Connell during their time working together in San Francisco. So it’ll be interesting to see if the Vikings’ man of the future leans on the past or something else entirely in his effort to knock his first major team decision out of the park.
