EAGAN, Minn. -- Kwesi Adofo-Mensah faced one of the biggest moments in his tenure as the Minnesota Vikings' general manager this week. Having lost his starting quarterback to a serious injury, he had 48 hours to decide whether to give up on the 2023 season and sell off roster assets at the NFL trade deadline.
So, Adofo-Mensah said on Wednesday that he retreated to his office and sought inspiration from the rock band Creed, a favorite band of quarterback Kirk Cousins.
A few steps down the hallway at the Vikings' training facility, coach Kevin O'Connell was wistfully and almost mournfully considering his on-field options at quarterback. He later acknowledged "coping" with not only that Cousins was having arguably his best NFL season before tearing his right Achilles tendon against the Green Bay Packers, but also "where we could have gone as a team" as a result. O'Connell ultimately tapped rookie Jaren Hall, at least for this Sunday at the Atlanta Falcons (1 p.m. ET, Fox), but not before delivering some heartfelt and melancholy advice from his own playing career.
This was a week like no other in the history of the Vikings' franchise, a moment in time that clarified a deep connection to Cousins and cemented its insistence to always play what Adofo-Mensah called "meaningful games." Adofo-Mensah did trade one starter, guard Ezra Cleveland, but only because he had already signed veteran Dalton Risner as his replacement. He acquired quarterback Joshua Dobbs to hedge against Hall's inexperience and ultimately decided that avoiding a fire sale would not do "anything material," he said, to set back the franchise.
"Obviously it adds a curveball," Adofo-Mensah said of Cousins' injury. "I can't say that I thought maybe the most durable quarterback we have in our league was going to [get hurt] -- and anybody who would tell you that would be misinforming you. So, it does add a little uncertainty. But we have this way where we look at every scenario -- our draft picks, all the different players we have under contract -- and ultimately ... it doesn't really change that picture. If anything, seeing Kirk play that way, that's what we thought [success] was going to look like.
"That's where that wistfulness maybe comes from, of seeing what that looked like up close. But no, I don't think it changes our long-term picture at all, other than just focusing on Kirk the player, the person, trying to get him better, lift his spirits up and welcome him in to be the leader he is for this team."
Playing "meaningful games" describes the approach that owners Zygi and Mark Wilf insisted on when interviewing candidates for the jobs they offered to Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell in January 2022. Adofo-Mensah has referred to it as a "competitive rebuild," and O'Connell has "dual worlds," and nowhere has it hovered more than over Cousins.
His contract is set to void in March, giving him a guaranteed path to free agency if he wants it, and this season has added game-by-game data points to the Vikings' looming decision on his future. On paper, a serious injury at age 35 should lower the chances of re-signing him at market value, but it was notable to hear Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell strongly indicate their continued interest in him.
O'Connell reminded reporters that "Kirk Cousins is going to be healthy again" and said "that will be something that will hopefully work itself out." Adofo-Mensah said that his discussions with Cousins this week included timetables for recovery, and Cousins' hope that he will be ready to participate in OTAs in late spring. Given the work Cousins does to maintain his physical condition, Adofo-Mensah said, "I don't think he's a normal 35-year-old person in that regard."
Adofo-Mensah also questioned whether an Achilles injury would truly "impact his game and his particular skill set," given Cousins' general aversion to scrambling from the pocket, and added: "Like I said when we broke off talks the first time, every option was still available to Kirk. And coming back was one of the really good options we had. ... All options are open as they were before the injury."
In the meantime, the Vikings' whiplashed week will end with Hall becoming just the second quarterback other than Cousins to start a regular season game in the past six years. Cousins made 88 of a possible 90 starts over that period, with Sean Mannion replacing him once in 2019 while he rested for the playoffs and once in 2021 because of a COVID-19 diagnosis.
A fifth-round pick from BYU, Hall was set to spend this season as the Vikings' No. 3 quarterback behind Cousins and veteran Nick Mullens. He is older than 40% of the players on the Vikings' active roster, at 25 and 224 days, giving him an unusual level of maturity for a rookie. He performed unevenly in three extensive preseason stints, completing 54.2% of his passes and taking nine sacks in 56 dropbacks, and he received no regular-season practice reps with the Vikings' offense before this week.
But with Mullens on injured reserve because of a back injury, and Mannion only a recent addition to the practice squad, Hall was the only realistic option for Sunday's game in Atlanta. He will take over a team that was one of the NFL's best during the month of October, based on the type of metrics the Vikings analytically inclined front office uses. In compiling a 4-1 record over that period, their offense had the league's seventh-best rate of Expected Points Added (EPA), while their defense ranked No. 6.
That stretch had convinced the team's decision-makers that it was well on its way to a second consecutive playoff berth, and it's why Dobbs will back up Hall and be available to replace him if needed. Their path forward is more challenging regardless, O'Connell admitted, but Adofo-Mensah championed Hall this week and said: "I think there's a way that he can play that we can function."
While it's not often that a third-string quarterback gets a chance to start for a team that considers itself playoff-worthy, it would be "incredibly wrong," O'Connell said, for Hall to focus on the "big picture" impact of Sunday's game. O'Connell drew on his own experience in 2008 as a third-round draft pick of the New England Patriots, who waived him after one season.
"The last thing he needs to be thinking about is, 'What does this mean? Where is my career going to go from here?'" O'Connell said. "This is about making sure I call the play right, break the huddle, and do my job."
In a 2022 interview, O'Connell said that he "maybe tried to do too much" with his limited opportunities in front of the Patriots' decision-makers. He played in two games as Tom Brady's backup as a rookie and never got another NFL snap during a regular-season game.
"I remember feeling like I had to win the game on every play sometimes," he said. "Maybe because you were fighting for a job, maybe because you felt like you were stepping in in a role where you needed to show what you can do.
"It is probably the one thing looking back on it, and I did have people tell me [not to think about the big picture], but I wish they would have made me tattoo it right there on my arm so I could be reminded of it every day."
Hall referred to himself as a "very chill individual," and his personality seems well-suited to navigate a week like the Vikings have had. He won't perform the way Cousins did, and the Vikings won't play like they did with him in the lineup. But Hall said he would "take things little by little" rather than trying to do everything at once, and that seemed like a good idea for the entire franchise.