Year 3 with KAM & KO - How we feelin'?

Looking forward, the Vikings shouldn’t expect their defensive coordinator to squeeze every once of blood out of the stone, rather they need enough roster quality to survive a few injuries. If we look at the top defenses in the NFL, they are well stocked with Pro Bowlers and All-Pros. If the Vikings lose Hunter and possibly Harrison Smith to retirement, they will be without a single Pro Bowler. They will need to replace two starting edge rusher spots, add interior pressure, possibly replace or re-sign Jordan Hicks and add a shutdown player to a secondary that got exposed late in the year.

The defensive build may pale in comparison to the decision at quarterback but the status of the roster on the defensive side is relevant to the quarterback decision. As the Vikings consider whether to offer Kirk Cousins a contract extension, they have to consider whether they can support him with an elite defense. We have seen multiple years of sample size with Cousins trying to overcome defensive weaknesses and it hasn’t yielded results in the postseason.

The front office has to decide whether the proper interpretation of 2023 from a defensive perspective that they found future pieces like Bynum, Metellus, Pace Jr. and Blackmon to build around but have a long way to go or that they are a few signings or draft picks away from being Baltimore, Cleveland or San Francisco. Does bringing back Danielle Hunter change that? Or is there a lot more to do in order to get there?

Adofo-Mensah’s comments from the summer would indicate that the overall roster strength is as huge part of the quarterback decision.

“There is a certain level that you need to have to win a championship and you’re trying to make sure you can have that within the confines of putting the rest of the team around him and that’s what we’ll always continue to do,” Adofo-Mensah said.

Similar to the defensive side, the 2023 season told us quite a bit about where the offense stands. We didn’t know entering the year if Addison could play or if Garrett Bradbury’s contract extension was the right decision or if guard Ed Ingram could be an effective starter. We didn’t know if they would extend Ezra Cleveland or if Alexander Mattison could be RB1 or if KJ Osborn would play so well that it would force their hand to keep the new “Three Deep” together. We have answers now, some good, some not.

Overall offensive side would appear from a wide lens to be set up brilliantly for whichever quarterback is going to step into the limelight but it’s not without work needed around the edges. Both Osborn and Brandon Powell are free agents, as is left guard Dalton Risner, who will likely want a raise to stick around after helping bolster the pass blocking.

Again this ties back to the quarterback. Should the Vikings believe that Cousins can return with this group and whatever they can afford to do at LG, WR3 and WR4 and lead an elite offense?

The 2023 season has put the Vikings in position to draft close enough to get a starting position player or make a play for a quarterback. There could be as many as five first-round QBs (depending on whose mock you read), which may allow the Vikings to pick a QB from their spot or take a shot at trading the farm for a quarterback.

If things go the way the team is hoping, this may be the highest draft pick they get for a while. It might be the best shot they have to either taking a future franchise quarterback or difference-making defensive player.

It’s possible the decision at QB comes down to whether Cousins can return for an affordable enough price to still build the rest of the roster or if the Vikings’ brass believes they have identified a quarterback in the draft that they could stack the roster over the next few years using the cap space created by a rookie contract.

If the Vikings end up with an expensive quarterback and a team with a number of good pieces but aren’t complete enough to play with the Cowboys and 49ers’ of the world, then they will not have taken advantage of what the 2023 competitive rebuild year gave them. Instead they will simply repeat history. In 2020 the team attempted a similar revamping following a cap-driven exodus of stars following 2019. They found a handful of players for the future like Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw in the draft but ended up scrambling to fill spots with little cap space and missed the playoffs two years in a row, which led to Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman’s firing.

There’s another aspect to 2023 that could also make the short-term failure a long-term success: O’Connell’s self evaluation.

Throughout the backup quarterbacks’ struggles, O’Connell’s pass-first philosophy has been a central part of the discussion. While all coaches look worse when backups throw interceptions and sacks, that doesn’t mean that the entire sample of the 2023 offensive performance should be thrown out.

How can they improve the run game? How can they make things easier with short passes and screens? All four QBs they used this season were better when using play-action, how can they build on that?

And maybe most important: What does an O’Connell offense really need from its quarterback? Is it possible to pare down an O’Connell offense for an inexperienced quarterback? Or does it require Cousins’ acumen and arm talent? Can he build around a mobile QB or does he need someone to sling from the pocket?

The bottom line is that no matter how frustrating the 2023 season ended up with a pile of injuries and close losses, it has opened up an opportunity to build upon it much in the way they hoped from the start. Where it goes from here will make it worth the struggle or not. And there’s no time to waste. The Lions are at the top of the division, the Bears have the same number of wins and sit with the No. 1 overall pick and the Packers have their QB in place with a young roster.

In the same press conference from the summer, Adofo-Mensah explained that it’s statistically easier to go from total rebuild mode to the top than win from the middle. They will have to use every ounce of information and every foundational piece and every bit of cap space they created last offseason and every draft pick that 2023 gave them in order to buck those odds into the coming seasons.

“Draft picks have a lot of variance,” he said in the spring at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

This feels like the perfect place to start as it relates to the current situation for the Vikings. They are about to embark on a pivotal offseason — Adofo-Mensah’s third as GM — with a boatload of needs. Adofo-Mensah has explained that his role requires intentional decision-making to “build a championship team within the time window,” a finite period during which the GM holds that job. The issue is, salary-cap space can only cover so many of the team’s holes, underscoring the importance of drafting players who can provide immediate impact.

If only it were as easy in practice as it is to type.

Thaler and Massey found that “over their first five years, first-round draft picks have more seasons with zero starts (15.3 percent) than with Pro Bowl selections (12.8 percent).” This, of course, raises the question: Is there anything a decision-maker can do to improve those odds? Are certain data points more valuable than others? Are particular evaluators better than others?

Thaler and Massey outlined their belief, writing that empirical evidence (i.e. a specific player’s running speed) should be paired with prior probabilities. “Teams should find these prior odds quite sobering,” Thaler and Massey wrote.

Their opinion is shared by Adofo-Mensah, whose background is in economics.

“It’s tough,” Adofo-Mensah said in the spring of filtering through all of the data points. “If eight of your data points are pointing one direction, you’re going to assume it’s likely good information, but you’re not always sure. You want to make sure that you weigh the information by its believability, by its quality. Do you want to weigh one snap at the Senior Bowl versus three years of film study? All those things go into it, and we’re just going to try to make decisions the best we can.”

There is humility in Adofo-Mensah’s perspective. He understands he’s making predictions about human beings, just like CEOs do when they hire employees. Mistakes and misses happen. Similar to a game of blackjack, the odds are stacked against you from the get-go. Unlike blackjack, however, Adofo-Mensah has to play.

“You want to make sure that you build in the draft because the access to the best players, the players with a ceiling, is typically in the draft,” he said.

In 2022, Adofo-Mensah classified first-round picks, second-round picks and cap space as the team’s “best bullets.” Those, he has said, should be used on transactions that are the most certain.

Here is how Adofo-Mensah used those draft resources in 2022:

• Drafted safety Lewis Cine with the 32nd pick
• Drafted cornerback Andrew Booth Jr. with the 42nd pick
• Drafted guard Ed Ingram with the 59th pick

And here is how Adofo-Mensah used his premium draft resources in 2023:

• Drafted wide receiver Jordan Addison with the 23rd pick
• Traded second-round pick to the Lions in package for tight end T.J. Hockenson

Neither Cine nor Booth appears likely to be a starting defensive back for the Vikings. Ingram has improved from his rookie season, but his ceiling seems to be limited to a low-end starter at best. And Addison has shown flashes of being a reliable No. 2 receiver.

None of these results should be overly surprising given the historical odds, even if the picks are hair-raising in hindsight. Second-round cornerbacks, for reference, tend to become starters around 40 percent of the time, according to Riske’s research. The hit rate on guards is worse at around 37 percent.

The probabilities tend to shrink as the rounds pass. Linebackers selected in the third round become starting-caliber players 40 percent of the time. Brian Asamoah, a Vikings third-round pick in 2022, has mostly been confined to a special teams role. Cornerbacks taken in the fourth round traditionally have about a 22 percent chance of becoming a starter. Akayleb Evans, a Vikings fourth-rounder in 2022, has shown flashes in 13 games this season, but his future status as a starter remains in question.

None of Adofo-Mensah’s other draft picks are budding stars. Cornerback Mekhi Blackmon, running back Ty Chandler and defensive tackle Jaquelin Roy have played admirably in largely limited roles. Safety Jay Ward, wide receiver Jalen Nailor and tight end Nick Muse may have roles in the future. Quarterback Jaren Hall and running back DeWayne McBride need more seasoning. Neither defensive tackle Esezi Otomewo nor tackle Vederian Lowe is still on the roster.

On the bright side, undrafted rookie linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., who was prioritized by defensive coordinator Brian Flores, appears to be a hidden gem.

“The draft is shaped in a way that when you get to pick earlier, you get the first pick and all the best players in theory,” Adofo-Mensah said in the spring. “And relative to our ability to be able to identify those players, you get to go first. Every time you go back, you lose the odds of drafting that player. Now what do you gain? You gain the volume of drafting good players potentially who have a lower chance but potential of being great. It’s just the (trade-off).”

Note the specific words Adofo-Mensah used in that message and the quotes prior: odds, chance, trade-off, variance, data, believability. Love it or hate it, this is the prism through which the Vikings GM views this process. It’s unconventional, even if it aligns with empirical research. It’s bold in the way that it’s bold to admit that even you, as an expert, are unsure. And it’s informative … but only to a point.

In the end, regardless of the process, prolonged failure in trying to add talent via the draft limits a GM’s window for building a championship team.