Having serious doubts about KAM already?

Last year was pretty inside the box. His opening salvo created a ton of pavlovian hand wringing where he probably left so meat on the bone by old school standards. Wasn't a great first at bat in the bigs from an optic standpoint but by the end he was net negative a third rounder at worst and net positive a 3rd rounder at best with four different charts in different directions. Bottom line is that it's probably a big nothing burger in the end if he got what he wanted and hopefully he did. But there's the nit. Zero or terrible production from Days 1, 2 in last years draft so far. I can write that off for a year. The rest of his moves were pretty conventional last year. Probably more good than bad and the results were excellent even if clearly not sustainable.

But he's a fair distance out of the box this year in my opinion so far. The edge room has an extra decorative column. The RB room is a kitchen with two stoves. The CB room is still barely framed. The QB room still has mauve carpet from the 80s. The LB room has a lazy boy barcalounger with cup holders next to a herman miller post modern piece and in the TE room they went with an oddly expensive futon.

I'm a little concerned with the smartest guy in the room phenomena but we'll see. I walk through the house and see a bunch of decisions that are interesting choices right now yet I'm not convinced they're functional.

I would say in terms of finding talent, he gets 2 more drafts... Most of his top picks were hurt and of course we have the Donatell factor too that plays into that way too much. So I think by the end of the 2025 season, we should have a pretty good idea how Kwesi/KOC can identify and develop talent in comparison to their peers.

I will say that if see another Detroit like trade down.. I'm going to be pretty livid... I didn't mind most of what he did in terms of trading around outside of that one move... I'd even go as far to say as I liked most of it (I do remember a similar overpay, but it had to do with a 4th round pick this year I believe... I'm not going to lose as much sleep over a developmental pick vs day 1 starter capital if you get the guy you really want)... but that first round trade down to get Cine left plenty of money on the table... and I'd add he called that in the moment he was on the clock, so it's not like he even tried to use the 15 minutes or whatever it was as leverage to squeeze a little extra out of the Lions in a situation where everyone knew that was a weak offer. 

All of that became meaningless when the Vikings lost at home to a bad playoff team.

The regular season is about getting the team in the best possible spot to succeed in the playoffs and nothing more. That is why teams sit players as soon as their seeding is set.

Situationally, either by luck or scheme the team was better in 2023 than it was in 2022, but statically they were worse in most areas and it showed in the playoffs. That means KOC was a good hire, but outside of that he did not improve the team and kept it status quo at the expense of 2023.

A really bad start for the GM.

it's called moving the goal posts. It was wins and 4th quarter comebacks until they started winning and coming from behind to do so. Now it's playoff and SB wins only.

It's sad defending Cousins. I am not even a fan, but both the irrational hate and irrational love for the guy is beyond frustrating. He's a good not great QB that's way more expensive than what he brings to the table in a world where QBs are already overvalued in general.

Stats do win football games. Points scored and points given up are stats after all, and the Vikings gave up one more point and scored one fewer in 2022 than they did in 2021.


Not sure where the Cousins discussion came from, but glad to see you finally coming around to wins being a QB stat. Too bad our QB's wins stats have amounted to 2 double digit win seasons in 10 years as a pro and the most recent one was the most improbable statistically in the history of the NFL.



Huge improvement based mostly on luck at the end of games. The talent on the team did not improve, this despite nearly all of Kwesi's offseason moves going to improve that D. The "strength" of the team was the offense and the only change he made there was at RG, who was by far the worst player on that offense and was an indicted child rapist.

That means Kwesi had an offseason where he focused on improving the D through the draft and free agency and instead of it getting better, it got worse despite the best player on the D being healthy the entire season for the first time in 3 seasons. A bad off season for talent acquisition for him, really bad. That more than makes up for the good coaching hire since the majority of his job going forward is acquiring and retaining talent.

That isn't being a "negative Nancy", that is being very realistic about the off season the GM had.

I will say this year has been better so far, and Kwesi appears to have learned from his mistakes in 2021. A very good sign, since way too many GMs and head coaches' egos don't allow them to admit when they are wrong. He still hasn't made the team better than the one he inherited, but he has time and at least a couple of more drafts to do just that.

Debating about Cousins is like politics, neither side is ever going to be convinced by the other, and the arguing permeates into other topics and sends them down a rabbit hole… and now I’m part of the problem, commenting on it in an unrelated thread.

I’m not going to overreact on KAM, seeing as how the average GM gets at least 4 years in the NFL. His 2022 Draft class looks bad, but there’s still time. If he can find a quality starting QB on a rookie deal, then a lot will be forgiven… conversely, if he screws up at QB then he’s going to be the primary scapegoat… of course, Spielman survived several blunders at QB and held out like a cockroach in a fallout shelter, so even if KAM screws the QB position up, he’ll still get more chances.