CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was introduced in Minnesota Thursday morning and the Browns as well as Andrew Berry were among the many he thanked for impacting his meteoric rise in the NFL.
The new Vikings general manager also had a message for the city and Browns fans he leaves behind.
“Cleveland, you have a rock star in that seat,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Please appreciate him.”
Adofo-Mensah, hired by Berry in 2020 as vice president of football operations after he spent seven years with the 49ers, referred to the Browns EVP and GM as his “big bro” and credited Berry with expanding his horizons.
“I think everybody in their life needs somebody who sees more in them than they see in themself and for me that was Andrew Berry,” Adofo-Mensah said. “When he brought me for that role, man, I don’t know, I was like, ‘You sure?’ I believed in myself, but he’s always challenged me, pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone.
“He’s been incredible to me and I’m proud that he’s a mentor of mine. I’ll miss those late-night texts about 2026 trade scenarios. But no stone unturned, that’s the standard, that’s what we’ll live by at the Vikings, and I learned that from him.”
Adofo-Mensah also thanked the Haslam family – Jimmy and Dee Haslam, J.W. Johnson and his wife, Whitney as well as head coach Kevin Stefanski.
“We get to learn at the highest level in this sport and those guys elevated me to a different place,” Adofo-Mensah said. “To my Browns family for welcoming me to the group and inspiring me to build and be a part of our front office, as great as the culture that they have.”
During Adofo-Mensah’s two years in Cleveland, the Browns enjoyed a stretch not seen since the late 1980s that saw them win a combined 19 games in the regular season and end an 18-year playoff drought amid a pandemic.
Adofo-Mensah, a former commodities trader and portfolio manager, spearheaded the 49ers efforts to develop and implement advanced quantitative methods for game strategy and personnel evaluation. While working in San Francisco’s football research and development department, he was quickly promoted to manager, a position he held for five years prior to being named the director of the department.
After arriving in Cleveland, Berry immediately began broadening Adofo-Mensah’s horizons and challenged him to learn and do more.
“It was a boot camp in scouting,” Adofo-Mensah said. “In San Francisco, I was in those draft meetings, I was watching, I was listening to the coaches, but I wasn’t responsible for doing those things myself. And now I’m asked to be in those meetings and Andrew wouldn’t let me fall back on my skillset.
‘Nope, you’re going to watch the players. You’re going to write reports and learn all those things.’
“What I loved about that was you get to do it your way. He’s always like, ‘Hey, listen to everybody else, but take what they teach you and apply it the way that somebody who is like you would apply it.’ So I’ve come up with some great things. It’s probably my favorite part of my NFL experience and kind of learning something that I didn’t know.”
After helping Berry reshape the Browns roster in Cleveland, Adofo-Mensah will get to lead the Vikings in doing the same in Minnesota.
Adofo-Mensah interviewed twice with the Vikings, most recently on Tuesday before being offered the job.
“It just felt right,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I was catching up with AB [Berry] afterwards and I was like, ‘Man, they were so detail-oriented, so process-driven’ and he said, ‘It sounds like you found your people.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it made sense, man.’
“I came down from my study, it was a Zoom, it was snowing in Cleveland so I couldn’t get to the office. I came downstairs and I was kind of like skipping. My fiancé is like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, there was like energy from it.’ She went on Etsy at that moment and bought a vintage Viking hat that she’s wearing over there right now. I think she knew before I did that I’d be here.”
