Kwesi's Approach

Have they ever won an SB? Smh! Now people want to blame him like others have won the SB

Duke Shelley? Really?

KAM is trying to exploit market inefficiencies like many other GMs. He was handed a very uneven roster with terrible contracts. I like what he’s doing and hopefully we see more cuts and signings soon.

He isn't wrong about Kwesi's approach being unique, and he could very well be correct that it is not a good approach. Or he could be wrong.

Either way, I think a thread discussing Kwesi's strategy, both the pros and cons, is fine.

Crazy how people don't think this is what he is trying to do. Now you have to hit on those players, though.....hopefully he does

The salary cap forces a gravitational pull towards 8-8. Someone said that somewhere, and that's a true statement.

You know why teams tank? To hit the lottery on a cheap QB and hope they can build a team around said QB? Why? because the value of said cheap contract. As soon as that contract gets expensive though, the approach fails... and that assumes they can develop said cheap QB... But look what happens once the QB get expensive. It gets really hard to win a SB...

So back to the OPs point, Kwessi is looking for value in contracts and the draft, and he's taking a less than conventional approach to it.. News flash. HE SHOULD BE.

Whether or not it will work is a different thing altogether. What I've seen thus far is that he's spending money on things like nutrition and health that don't count against the cap... and as a result, we were "lucky" with our injuries last season. I don't think that's luck. That's science and a way of allocating resources that get's us ahead... Now he turns around and signs guys coming off of injuries... Why? More upside on cheaper contracts... Again, allocating resources knowing he mitigate that risk. Will it pan out every time? No. The NFL is not injury proof, but he can mitigate those risks and probably target certain types of injuries over others.

The same can be said for culture... that tank for XYZ QB strategy fails so often for various reasons, in large part b/c teams cannot develop their QBOTF they spent so much on... said QBOTF is set up to fail... and not surprisingly, they usually fail. People act like Brady would have succeeded anywhere. Reality is that he probably flames out of the NFL on most teams, including our own. Maybe Kwessi has gotten that wrong too, I don't know. I think there's something to be said for giving him a couple years to prove it. Lord knows what we've been doing for the last 60 has failed. I was one of the ones royally upset about the Detroit trade, and I'm still salty there because of the value left behind, so don't kid yourself, I think Kwessi still has room to grow there, but finding value is very key part of his job. If he can do it effectively, he'll be doing his job for a long time.

I am not saying Spielman's approach was correct either in fact Spielman also loved value in drafts and kept trading down. The reality of the draft is this: I'd rather have a few high picks then many lower picks it is a lottery but the lottery has 2 types of tickets in the NFL draft the higher you pick the better the odds of that pick panning out.

I am just saying at this point it appears Kwesi is emphasizing value above all else getting deals etc and it has not panned out so far. But he is capable of doing the other approach: I will tell you a non-value deal he did: Hockenson no injury history not an underperfomer there is an an example where he went with production over value and it cost us several draft picks.

It's a bit much to hope that players who are injury prone and/or underperformers will suddenly because healthy and good - of course - you can gamble on 1 player like that for cheap ... but you don't want to be doing that with high draft picks and ALL your big FA signings.

This draft will tell us a lot if he has learned the error of his ways. Remember the last 7 years of Vikings drafts (including Kwesi's 1 year) have been horrendous 4 legit picks none on defense. The draft is how you build teams not FA even the best cap teams only add a couple good FAs the bulk comes from the draft. Either one of KC's last 2 drafts were better than all 7 years of our drafts.