With the “culture of collaboration” bit they had going on, and a lot of the players they acquired clearly being guys that Flores or KOC had identified (Addison, Gink, Cashman, Rodgers, etc.), I just really have a hard time believing that KOC was not on board with moving on to JJ. And KOC is equally at fault on the Jones thing if he thought they could count on that before the ink was dry. The drafts were awful, but the roster was in good shape for the most part. It all comes down to JJ, and that’s probably more on KOC than anybody else.
All we heard when the drafted a QB was that the decision on when McCarthy would play was 100% KOC's call. So I've long felt like you do about JJ being on KOC more than Kwesi.
I know that Brzezinski is fantastic at what he does, but would he be good as a GM? The first thing that stood out to me from this article was the Thielen acquisition. I remember all the debate over that decision and purchase price, whether it was something they should have done or if they overpaid. If KAM was hesitant but everyone else pushed it, I do wonder at their judgment.
Sounds like there are a lot of factors at play. Football guys versus non-football guys, lots of bad luck, sketchy judgment calls, and a general lack of experience on KAMs end.
You need a fall guy for the season and when one guy does not have the trust of a lot of people easy to ax him
Basically they are kind of stuck (too good to get a top qb in the 2027 draft, too bad to win big unless JJ really improves or you get a decent qb). Hard to do a reset at this point so it is ride or die with KOC
And even if not his fault, yuu need a real GM at some point (instead of it being 100% the coaches call on players)
tbh this whole season needed a fall guy, we’re back to 2022 with a bloated salary cap, aging roster and no clear franchise QB. Our only hope is FMcP fixes his processing problem or a Mac Jones for Addison straight up trade.
This draft and season are completely on O’Connell’s shoulders.
Is it a fall guy, or is it the natural consequence of a continued pattern of poor performance? If you're in the big chair and doing *waves arms* this, you should be replaced. If you weren't making the decisions, then you should be replaced because you shouldn't be in the big chair, and in passing what the heck were you being paid for, then?
Frankly, the extensions for JJ and Darrisaw (Spielman picks) weren't major victories. JJ wanted to be the highest paid non-qb and during camp in 2023 the sides were close, but then Bosa signed his extension and so negotiations with JJ fell apart. KAM knew or should have known other deals were coming and that it behooved him to move quickly so his was the first domino. The JJ extension ended up getting done the following May, but it cost another $5-7/year. It's not a crippling mistake, and JJ is the exact kind of player for whom it makes sense to reset the market, but that's money that should have been available to spend on another player.
In a tenure-long theme, this is the exact kind of mistake that someone with a business background should not make. KAM floundered at what was supposed to be his best skill. Everyone makes bad picks, Howie Roseman once took a 27 year old Canadian firefighter in the the first round, and of course Reagor over JJ. But, Roseman consistently aces the use of capital. KAM did the opposite.
This whole thing just doesn't really sit right. If Kwesi had lost so much influence that Rob could make the Thielen trade without him, I have a hard time believing KOC didn't get to make the final decision about moving on to JJ. And the rest of the roster was very good besides that position.
Maybe he was really just the odd man out in the building and the one everyone felt comfortable pointing a finger at when things went sideways. End of the day, if he doesn't get the final say on trades and other roster decisions, there isn't much point keeping him around.
Thank you for having the least inflammatory coverage of this that treats this like a human story and not some WWE promo or John Grisham conspiracy court drama.
Just like JJ, Kwesi's inexperience seemed to outshine his influence, and we're left with some mixed results. Lots of high highs and some devastating lows, and kinda of an aimless shrug by the end. I also believe the process we love to talk about was mostly sound for their objective. Ninety percent of their moves, I totally get, which is why I've been pretty even keeled about the results, disappointed rather than upset. I even think the Vikings would be fine keeping Kwesi. It's not like he single handedly imploded the franchise like past staff.
But if you're thinking about ending things you should just do it. So clearly time to move on. I give credit to the Wilfs in this regard for letting him go before it truly soured like the previous regime.
With the Vikings moving on from Kwesi it feels like it gets easier to reset the narrative—and potentially move off JJ McC sooner than later. But KOC has publicly said that organizations fail young quarterbacks more than young quarterbacks fail organizations—and that development requires real infrastructure: a plan, support, and accountability.
So isn’t there a responsibility on the head coach—who was clearly part of the QB direction—to be fully committed to that plan for a full-season runway? And if it doesn’t work with the structure in place, shouldn’t that reflect on the coaching identity and ‘QB-whisperer’ reputation as much as the quarterback himself? KOC I think needs to walk his talk. JJ is either going to be the quarterback of the future or JJ and KOC have to hit the pavement. Both of their futures are tied together. Thoughts, Matt?
Really nice article! Oh how much I would like to have listened to the Darnold conversations last offseason. It'll be interesting to see if we hear any conflicting reports through the media in the coming weeks / months...probably not. But I'm here for it!
I do like what you brought up Matthew in the live show yesterday about the dynamic of really leaving the old guard scouting team in place and questioning to what level Kwesi was able to bring "his people' into the fold. Kind of feels like it was Kwesi with Spielman's old crew and you have to question how many there were willing to buy in from the very beginning.
I listened to your podcast and one other (maybe Skor North) and a couple of thoughts
1. Clearly he was the Rodney Dangerfield GM in Minnesota. Nobody seemed to respect him.
2. Theilen was an over pay (I did not see why did not pick up Renfrow for free (draft capital wise)
the question was... was he forced to overpay by the coaches/Wilfs?
3. This is clearly set up so that 2026 is on KOC. The new GM will have nothing to do with main FA/dealing with the salary cap/the draft...
4. Got to think this is not good for JJ starting next year... The noose is around KOC`s neck and he has next year to escape or the trap door opens.
6. I remember an old podcast of yours where you mentioned if JJ hits, it does not matter what other draft picks hit and if he misses it does not matter who else hits..... Ouch!
7. I remember the trade down from 12 and hating it because maybe advance chartss showed a small gain but most showed a loss. For young, first time GM, doing a trade down that at best was a push made him stand out as a mark (though admittedly his 2nd trade with GB actually provided good theorectical value even if he blew the picks (hated the Ingram pick because he was a 3rd talent with a scandal so you probably could have gotten him in the 4th round.
8. Your point today of he did not do as much "analytical" stuff as expected makes sense (like last year picking Donovan Jackson with the first instead of getting a juicy trade down (that said, the result might end up very good).
9. There is going to be a lot of crap on how he messed up and much we will never know and some of it will be unfair (like blaming him for not getting Drake Maye)
10. On the Drake Maye non deal, I do doink him for the trade with Houston to get the 1st round pick. Everybody (GMS) can do the basic math and he overpaid for it. Why not wait until you have a deal to move up (to get the QBOTF) and overpay then. No need to overpay before a deal is in place.
No. 10 is really hard to fathom. There is a long, established practice of GMs laying the groundwork for trades and then pulling the trigger on draft day, when the other party is on the clock.
Making the first trade when there was no second trade in place was both inexplicable and grossly incompetent.
Had we picked up the first for "fair value" I would have understood. But it was a gross overpay at the time. So I agree.. Grossly incompetent.
He overpaid to go up then but got severely underpaid to go from 12 to 32... Analytics are only useful if you actually do it better than some schmuck like me behind a keyboard
I love this take, and I'm not being sarcastic. Media is definitely in "dump on Kwesi mode". I'm sure much of it is accurate and fair, but it's only one side.
Matt, it seems to me that Kwezi is the fall guy but I have a hard time believing KOC thought it was a good idea to only have JJ ask the starter and no experience in camp, Howell does not count. Offering a 3 year deal to Darnold or Jones with trading in year 2 or 3 would have been fine, not sure Kwezi was the cause but it sure seems like it.
At the end of the day, Kwesi was not the football leader that the Vikings organization hoped he would be. From all the interviews and his public appearances as the Vikings GM that I watched, I appreciated his transparency and honesty. I could tell he has no ill intentions and that he was a good guy.
I also appreciate the Wilfs’ progressive mindset in hiring an outside-the-box candidate for the job. I don’t think the intention was wrong. It just didn’t work out. Like others here say, he did some good, and at least he was a part of the process that landed KOC as the head coach here. I hope people stop piling on the guy.
The latest addition of assistant coaches appears promising, and I would assume they all joined the Vikings because they believe in the direction of the program.
The discussions the last few days center around their mishandling of the QB situation, but I just hope that this organization does not fail the best wide receiver in the league. He deserves better.
I think KAM didn't have a shot from the get go. He said he wanted to do a total rebuild from the start and then the Wilfs didn’t want that.
He was saddled with scouts that had one great draft in 2015 and only hit on a player here or there since then (yes they found Darrisaw/O'neil/JJ). Those same scouts were probably some of the people that didn't buy into his draft process. Yet they are the ones whose opinions he was using to make draft selections.
Not to mention the fact that he wanted Harbaugh, but they didn't like the fact that Harbaugh thought he had the job already. Harbaugh would have brought in a different staff and probably a different scouting crew with him which was what Kwesi was probably relying on.
You start out as the outsider in a new environment and are forced to use the people who don't like you. You are thrown off by the fact that the coach you wanted who had a proven track record wasn't hired. That doesn't really make it easy to succeed. If the team wasn't going to let him do things that he really wanted to do from the start why did they hire him?
Now Kwesi will probably never have another shot because of the slandering done against him. He was not a perfect GM by any means, but it sounds like he had a lot working against him as well. He didn't do alot of analytics things in his tenure that I could see besides maybe trying to get draft picks through the compensatory system. His trades were usually very poor on compensation which you would think with a wall street background he would come out ahead on those. He was not with out his own failures for sure.
However In the end he helped the team to a winning record. He oversaw a roster that people thought might be good enough for a Superbowl last year or this year.
In the end he gets thrown under the bus because of a bad season full of injuries to a QB that your coach was hyping up the year before. This all stinks and if this next year goes badly, KOC and that whole staff/scouting department needs to be purged.
I still can’t wrap my brain around the Adam Thielen trade and why Rob was even calling in the first place. If Kwesi doesn’t want to give up so much for the trade, but others disagree, wouldn’t it instead make sense for the owners to weigh in and tell Kwesi to “do it” and forget draft capital?
Either let Kwesi do the job or don’t give it to him in the first place.
This overall the more I think about it reflects poorly on the Wilfs. I’ve heard Mark Wilf in nearly every interview talk about how they are in “daily” contact with decision makers. Maybe this isn’t true, doesn’t matter much to me, but it just seems like they created a situation where Kwesi would eventually fail.
The Adam Thielen trade just shows how Kwesi was undermined. And if the Wilfs to Rob to make the call….why not just tell Kwesi to make the call?
So confusing. I think I’m going to stop giving the Wilfs so much of a pass. I appreciate the money they bring to allow cap flexibility, but they I think end up looking the worst of everyone here.
Kwesi deserves criticism, but the Wilfs need to do some self-reflection.
I wonder what Andrew Miller’s role was/is in all of this.
With the “culture of collaboration” bit they had going on, and a lot of the players they acquired clearly being guys that Flores or KOC had identified (Addison, Gink, Cashman, Rodgers, etc.), I just really have a hard time believing that KOC was not on board with moving on to JJ. And KOC is equally at fault on the Jones thing if he thought they could count on that before the ink was dry. The drafts were awful, but the roster was in good shape for the most part. It all comes down to JJ, and that’s probably more on KOC than anybody else.
All we heard when the drafted a QB was that the decision on when McCarthy would play was 100% KOC's call. So I've long felt like you do about JJ being on KOC more than Kwesi.
You wonder how many of the "I thought Kwesi was an analytics GM??" moves were just him getting overruled.
I know that Brzezinski is fantastic at what he does, but would he be good as a GM? The first thing that stood out to me from this article was the Thielen acquisition. I remember all the debate over that decision and purchase price, whether it was something they should have done or if they overpaid. If KAM was hesitant but everyone else pushed it, I do wonder at their judgment.
Sounds like there are a lot of factors at play. Football guys versus non-football guys, lots of bad luck, sketchy judgment calls, and a general lack of experience on KAMs end.
Should have had a fall guy
You need a fall guy for the season and when one guy does not have the trust of a lot of people easy to ax him
Basically they are kind of stuck (too good to get a top qb in the 2027 draft, too bad to win big unless JJ really improves or you get a decent qb). Hard to do a reset at this point so it is ride or die with KOC
And even if not his fault, yuu need a real GM at some point (instead of it being 100% the coaches call on players)
tbh this whole season needed a fall guy, we’re back to 2022 with a bloated salary cap, aging roster and no clear franchise QB. Our only hope is FMcP fixes his processing problem or a Mac Jones for Addison straight up trade.
This draft and season are completely on O’Connell’s shoulders.
Is it a fall guy, or is it the natural consequence of a continued pattern of poor performance? If you're in the big chair and doing *waves arms* this, you should be replaced. If you weren't making the decisions, then you should be replaced because you shouldn't be in the big chair, and in passing what the heck were you being paid for, then?
Frankly, the extensions for JJ and Darrisaw (Spielman picks) weren't major victories. JJ wanted to be the highest paid non-qb and during camp in 2023 the sides were close, but then Bosa signed his extension and so negotiations with JJ fell apart. KAM knew or should have known other deals were coming and that it behooved him to move quickly so his was the first domino. The JJ extension ended up getting done the following May, but it cost another $5-7/year. It's not a crippling mistake, and JJ is the exact kind of player for whom it makes sense to reset the market, but that's money that should have been available to spend on another player.
In a tenure-long theme, this is the exact kind of mistake that someone with a business background should not make. KAM floundered at what was supposed to be his best skill. Everyone makes bad picks, Howie Roseman once took a 27 year old Canadian firefighter in the the first round, and of course Reagor over JJ. But, Roseman consistently aces the use of capital. KAM did the opposite.
Good summary, I agree with you
This whole thing just doesn't really sit right. If Kwesi had lost so much influence that Rob could make the Thielen trade without him, I have a hard time believing KOC didn't get to make the final decision about moving on to JJ. And the rest of the roster was very good besides that position.
Maybe he was really just the odd man out in the building and the one everyone felt comfortable pointing a finger at when things went sideways. End of the day, if he doesn't get the final say on trades and other roster decisions, there isn't much point keeping him around.
Thank you for having the least inflammatory coverage of this that treats this like a human story and not some WWE promo or John Grisham conspiracy court drama.
Just like JJ, Kwesi's inexperience seemed to outshine his influence, and we're left with some mixed results. Lots of high highs and some devastating lows, and kinda of an aimless shrug by the end. I also believe the process we love to talk about was mostly sound for their objective. Ninety percent of their moves, I totally get, which is why I've been pretty even keeled about the results, disappointed rather than upset. I even think the Vikings would be fine keeping Kwesi. It's not like he single handedly imploded the franchise like past staff.
But if you're thinking about ending things you should just do it. So clearly time to move on. I give credit to the Wilfs in this regard for letting him go before it truly soured like the previous regime.
I agree with you. Kwesi did some good. And we do have a decent to very good roster.. But the game now is the qb.... And there was a mega whiff there
Rick Spielman would’ve drafted Hamilton, that much I know. Of course he would’ve re-signed Kirk Cousins, too, so, ya know.
With the Vikings moving on from Kwesi it feels like it gets easier to reset the narrative—and potentially move off JJ McC sooner than later. But KOC has publicly said that organizations fail young quarterbacks more than young quarterbacks fail organizations—and that development requires real infrastructure: a plan, support, and accountability.
So isn’t there a responsibility on the head coach—who was clearly part of the QB direction—to be fully committed to that plan for a full-season runway? And if it doesn’t work with the structure in place, shouldn’t that reflect on the coaching identity and ‘QB-whisperer’ reputation as much as the quarterback himself? KOC I think needs to walk his talk. JJ is either going to be the quarterback of the future or JJ and KOC have to hit the pavement. Both of their futures are tied together. Thoughts, Matt?
Really nice article! Oh how much I would like to have listened to the Darnold conversations last offseason. It'll be interesting to see if we hear any conflicting reports through the media in the coming weeks / months...probably not. But I'm here for it!
I do like what you brought up Matthew in the live show yesterday about the dynamic of really leaving the old guard scouting team in place and questioning to what level Kwesi was able to bring "his people' into the fold. Kind of feels like it was Kwesi with Spielman's old crew and you have to question how many there were willing to buy in from the very beginning.
Reminds me of the scenes from MoneyBall with the scouts thinking he's crazy
I listened to your podcast and one other (maybe Skor North) and a couple of thoughts
1. Clearly he was the Rodney Dangerfield GM in Minnesota. Nobody seemed to respect him.
2. Theilen was an over pay (I did not see why did not pick up Renfrow for free (draft capital wise)
the question was... was he forced to overpay by the coaches/Wilfs?
3. This is clearly set up so that 2026 is on KOC. The new GM will have nothing to do with main FA/dealing with the salary cap/the draft...
4. Got to think this is not good for JJ starting next year... The noose is around KOC`s neck and he has next year to escape or the trap door opens.
6. I remember an old podcast of yours where you mentioned if JJ hits, it does not matter what other draft picks hit and if he misses it does not matter who else hits..... Ouch!
7. I remember the trade down from 12 and hating it because maybe advance chartss showed a small gain but most showed a loss. For young, first time GM, doing a trade down that at best was a push made him stand out as a mark (though admittedly his 2nd trade with GB actually provided good theorectical value even if he blew the picks (hated the Ingram pick because he was a 3rd talent with a scandal so you probably could have gotten him in the 4th round.
8. Your point today of he did not do as much "analytical" stuff as expected makes sense (like last year picking Donovan Jackson with the first instead of getting a juicy trade down (that said, the result might end up very good).
9. There is going to be a lot of crap on how he messed up and much we will never know and some of it will be unfair (like blaming him for not getting Drake Maye)
10. On the Drake Maye non deal, I do doink him for the trade with Houston to get the 1st round pick. Everybody (GMS) can do the basic math and he overpaid for it. Why not wait until you have a deal to move up (to get the QBOTF) and overpay then. No need to overpay before a deal is in place.
No. 10 is really hard to fathom. There is a long, established practice of GMs laying the groundwork for trades and then pulling the trigger on draft day, when the other party is on the clock.
Making the first trade when there was no second trade in place was both inexplicable and grossly incompetent.
Had we picked up the first for "fair value" I would have understood. But it was a gross overpay at the time. So I agree.. Grossly incompetent.
He overpaid to go up then but got severely underpaid to go from 12 to 32... Analytics are only useful if you actually do it better than some schmuck like me behind a keyboard
I'm not sure what to think.
I love this take, and I'm not being sarcastic. Media is definitely in "dump on Kwesi mode". I'm sure much of it is accurate and fair, but it's only one side.
Matt, it seems to me that Kwezi is the fall guy but I have a hard time believing KOC thought it was a good idea to only have JJ ask the starter and no experience in camp, Howell does not count. Offering a 3 year deal to Darnold or Jones with trading in year 2 or 3 would have been fine, not sure Kwezi was the cause but it sure seems like it.
At the end of the day, Kwesi was not the football leader that the Vikings organization hoped he would be. From all the interviews and his public appearances as the Vikings GM that I watched, I appreciated his transparency and honesty. I could tell he has no ill intentions and that he was a good guy.
I also appreciate the Wilfs’ progressive mindset in hiring an outside-the-box candidate for the job. I don’t think the intention was wrong. It just didn’t work out. Like others here say, he did some good, and at least he was a part of the process that landed KOC as the head coach here. I hope people stop piling on the guy.
The latest addition of assistant coaches appears promising, and I would assume they all joined the Vikings because they believe in the direction of the program.
The discussions the last few days center around their mishandling of the QB situation, but I just hope that this organization does not fail the best wide receiver in the league. He deserves better.
I think KAM didn't have a shot from the get go. He said he wanted to do a total rebuild from the start and then the Wilfs didn’t want that.
He was saddled with scouts that had one great draft in 2015 and only hit on a player here or there since then (yes they found Darrisaw/O'neil/JJ). Those same scouts were probably some of the people that didn't buy into his draft process. Yet they are the ones whose opinions he was using to make draft selections.
Not to mention the fact that he wanted Harbaugh, but they didn't like the fact that Harbaugh thought he had the job already. Harbaugh would have brought in a different staff and probably a different scouting crew with him which was what Kwesi was probably relying on.
You start out as the outsider in a new environment and are forced to use the people who don't like you. You are thrown off by the fact that the coach you wanted who had a proven track record wasn't hired. That doesn't really make it easy to succeed. If the team wasn't going to let him do things that he really wanted to do from the start why did they hire him?
Now Kwesi will probably never have another shot because of the slandering done against him. He was not a perfect GM by any means, but it sounds like he had a lot working against him as well. He didn't do alot of analytics things in his tenure that I could see besides maybe trying to get draft picks through the compensatory system. His trades were usually very poor on compensation which you would think with a wall street background he would come out ahead on those. He was not with out his own failures for sure.
However In the end he helped the team to a winning record. He oversaw a roster that people thought might be good enough for a Superbowl last year or this year.
In the end he gets thrown under the bus because of a bad season full of injuries to a QB that your coach was hyping up the year before. This all stinks and if this next year goes badly, KOC and that whole staff/scouting department needs to be purged.
I still can’t wrap my brain around the Adam Thielen trade and why Rob was even calling in the first place. If Kwesi doesn’t want to give up so much for the trade, but others disagree, wouldn’t it instead make sense for the owners to weigh in and tell Kwesi to “do it” and forget draft capital?
Either let Kwesi do the job or don’t give it to him in the first place.
This overall the more I think about it reflects poorly on the Wilfs. I’ve heard Mark Wilf in nearly every interview talk about how they are in “daily” contact with decision makers. Maybe this isn’t true, doesn’t matter much to me, but it just seems like they created a situation where Kwesi would eventually fail.
The Adam Thielen trade just shows how Kwesi was undermined. And if the Wilfs to Rob to make the call….why not just tell Kwesi to make the call?
So confusing. I think I’m going to stop giving the Wilfs so much of a pass. I appreciate the money they bring to allow cap flexibility, but they I think end up looking the worst of everyone here.
Kwesi deserves criticism, but the Wilfs need to do some self-reflection.
I wonder what Andrew Miller’s role was/is in all of this.
This is the type of “inside” stuff I came for. Nice article.
I would love to be a mouse in the corner at a NFL GM meeting… what did they think about KAM?