Matt Fries
Degenerate levels of random football knowledge but mostly the Vikings
- I also share Luke's feeling here. To be clear, my opinion is that Kwesi shouldn't have been fired, but I think the firing is an easy sell, like Luke said just point to the drafting. As you go through it, the timing and articles explaining it make the case for firing Kwesi LESS convincing, not more.
- Maybe I should have made Arif let me contribute to his article about firing Kwesi instead, but I threaded about my feelings around the reporting about his firing. I find it interesting that throughout the articles there are many things painted in a negative light that feel like positives to me.
- I dug through three articles (Alec Lewis/Dianna Russini at the Athletic, Kevin Siefert at ESPN, and Matthew Coller at Purple Insider) to compare their notes on the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah firing and try to get to the bottom of it. Here are my thoughts. (links to articles at the bottom of the thread)
- From what I can deduct, there are 3 main reasons that Kwesi was fired: * Poor draft history * Strained Internal Dynamics * The 2025 QB decision I'll go over each in detail, trying to give my take on the major points.
- Poor draft history - this one is pretty self explanatory, and a strong argument for moving on. There are some notes in the Athletic article that people didn't seem to like that Kwesi either didn't take responsibility for or downplayed the 2022 draft by citing randomness.
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View full threadHere are the links to the three articles if you want to read them. www.purpleinsider.football/p/why-kwesi-... www.nytimes.com/athletic/701... www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
- Masterful gambit to commit multiple paragraphs to something that Kwesi apparently did NOT get fired for in your article giving reasons why Kwesi got fired. Very logical, just top tier work.
- I understand editors can hang authors out to dry with titles, but also people hide behind that excuse way too much when their work is misinterpreted. Write with less ambiguity. One might think a piece claiming to go "inside" the firing maybe should not constantly be referencing "outside" opinions.
- Last thought on Kwesi - whatever the "tension" in the Vikings' building was, I really, REALLY hope the idiots that wanted Aaron Rodgers to be QB of the Vikings didn't just win a power struggle.
- More thoughts on Kwesi. The draft results were obviously bad. But we also KNOW the draft is very random. It's difficult to consistently outperform there. There's a lot more GMs that started off hot and then got worse than started off bad and got better but that could easily be survivorship bias.
- From a free agency perspective, the Vikings were one of the best in the league from 2022-2024. They cooled off a little last year, but they still got pretty good production out of their class. That offset the draft issues for me. So why do this?
- Obviously, QB is one reason. But, what other option are you going to be able to give yourself this year? Why do we have to be so impatient with QB? Can we not try to wait one more season on JJ McCarthy? Why do we want to give up on a player with 10 career starts?
- I'm also seeing a lot of stuff about friction in the Vikings building. I wish someone would actually report details, but of course that's not how the game works. I'm sure that's the reason this happened now, I just want to know why. What did he do? Who drove this?
- The timing of this move is baffling to me. Why wait three weeks? Why even do it this season? Last offseason, you basically committed to a two year plan with the roster. I get that QB didn't go as you hoped but why not ride it out? Is there some sort of power struggle behind the scenes?
