Kwesi Adofo-Mensah says the Vikings aren’t locked in on one quarterback

He said so in his last pre-draft presser

Exactly two weeks from right now, we will likely be waiting for the Minnesota Vikings to turn in the card at the 2024 NFL Draft that has the name of their quarterback of the future written on it. Assuming they trade up to make it happen, anyway. . .if they don’t, it will be two weeks and a couple of hours, but who’s counting?

Today, Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah held his final press conference ahead of this year’s draft and did his best to make it sound like the team isn’t focused on just one player at the quarterback position.

“There are multiple guys that we are in love with,” he added. “But there’s also other guys that we are in love with … if we get them at a certain value.”

Obviously, none of us are in the draft room with Adofo-Mensah or head coach Kevin O’Connell or anyone else who’s going to play a significant role in the decisions that will be made on 25 April. We also don’t know the order that the Vikings have the top quarterbacks in this year’s Draft ranked in or how they’re evaluating players at the position. However, it certainly feels like the team is ready to take their shot at it with this year’s class.

Adofo-Mensah also seemed to make it clear that O’Connell has had a significant hand in the process to this point.

Adofo-Mensah has been instrumental in structuring head-coaching searches both for the 49ers and Vikings, though he’s leaned on O’Connell, the offensive schemer and former NFL quarterback, in this process.

“A lot of it came from Kevin,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Since we got here, Kevin’s really been adamant about, when you select a quarterback, it’s about — it’s a marriage. It’s that serious, and that level of commitment and work that should go into it.”

He added that his contributions have come in “how we measure and process things. But Kevin’s been really a big driver of this process and having completed it, I completely see why, and it’s been a great value.”

It would be a significant upset if the Vikings didn’t come out of the first round of this year’s draft without one of the top three non-Caleb Williams quarterbacks, whether it’s Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels, or J.J. McCarthy. The Vikings appear to have finally cleared out a lot of bad contracts and have put themselves in a position for long-term success if they hit on the quarterback decision. The Vikings can talk about patience and seeing how things play out all they want, but everything up to this point doesn’t point to that being the route they’re going to take.

So, if it sounds like Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell have been scouting quarterbacks like their jobs depend on it, that’s because it probably does. If they don’t get it right, in a year or two the next decision at quarterback for this franchise is likely going to be made by somebody else.