The months following the 2021 season will forever be a turning point for the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears.
The Vikings and Bears welcomed new regimes in spring 2022, hiring head coaches and general managers. Both teams had to overturn a roster that was filled with aging veterans or players who weren’t effective. They wanted to go from “in the hunt” to a championship-caliber franchise. They observed each other’s strategies from 400 miles apart.
Minnesota and Chicago will converge again in Minneapolis on Monday night. While the Vikings enter Monday’s game at 11-2, the Bears have lost seven consecutive games and are 4-9. The records are enough to declare victory in the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Ryan Poles debate. However, is there enough evidence to suggest Adofo-Mensah’s “competitive rebuild” was the right path?
You have to go back in time to find out. The 2021 Vikings were the end of an era. They fired longtime general manager Rick Spielman, and head coach Mike Zimmer bolted out the door without a simple wave (although there may have been a finger or two).
Minnesota’s search for a general manager began with Adofo-Mensah and Poles as the top candidates — and Poles was their top choice. An executive with the Kansas City Chiefs, Poles was credited with helping rebuild Kansas City’s offensive line and being part of a front office that drafted Patrick Mahomes. Many thought the Vikings lost out when Poles agreed to run the Bears.
Some believed Poles simply chose the first job in line, but there was also a different roster strategy. Poles thought the Vikings needed a complete teardown following the 2021 season. Meanwhile, ownership wanted to squeeze whatever was left out of the core that made the 2017 NFC Championship game and earned a playoff win over the New Orleans Saints in 2019.
That difference in opinion may have kept Poles from getting on the plane to Minneapolis, and he executed his plan with the Bears. Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith were among the first veterans he ushered out the door, and Chicago played with the second-largest cap hit in the NFL at $63.3 million while limping to a 3-14 record in 2022.
After eating the dead cap in his first season, Poles had money to spend, as well as the No. 1-overall pick. David Tepper’s aggressiveness helped Chicago cash in. They took Carolina’s first-round selection, multiple draft picks, and D.J. Moore instead of selecting Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud. The Bears spent in free agency, signing Tremaine Edmunds to a four-year, $72 million deal.
The Bears used their additional draft capital to trade for Montez Sweat and signed him to a four-year, $98 million contract at the 2023 trade deadline. Chicago responded by going 5-3 down the stretch, including a win in Minneapolis last December.
When Carolina’s first-round pick turned into the No. 1-overall selection, Chicago’s plan went into overdrive. They selected Caleb Williams in the draft, traded for Keenan Allen, and signed D’Andre Swift in free agency. The Bears also extended top corner Jaylon Johnson with a four-year, $76 million contract. They had heightened expectations for a team that went a combined 10-24 in Poles’ first two seasons.
Williams was supposed to be the final stone in Poles’ infinity gauntlet. When the Bears started 4-2, fans braced for Poles’ prediction to “take the North and never give it back” to come to fruition. But everything came apart after a Hail Mary loss to the Washington Commanders, and Chicago came into Monday night gasping for air.
Meanwhile, Adofo-Mensah dubbed his plan the “competitive rebuild.” He knew the Vikings couldn’t just keep doing the salary cap gymnastics Spielman had used in the final years of his tenure. Still, he couldn’t risk his job by burning a team to the ground in front of owners who didn’t want to go through a three-win season.
The first year was an evaluation year. Adofo-Mensah signed Kirk Cousins to a one-year, $35 million extension, gave Adam Thielen a raise, and converted an $18 million roster bonus into a signing bonus to keep Danielle Hunter.
The 2022 Vikings were the definition of “run it back.” However, they went 13-4 in 2022 and lost to Daniel Jones and the New York Giants in the Wild Card round. Executing the Spielman plan or even the Poles plan with a group of aging veterans may have been tempting. However, Adofo-Mensah stayed the course, peeling away the old infrastructure one layer at a time.
Thielen, Dalvin Cook, and Eric Kendricks were the first wave of veterans released in 2023. All three decisions carried heavy dead cap hits. Still, the Vikings had the flexibility to find players in their mid-20s that carried upside and were cost-effective in free agency, including Byron Murphy Jr.
An unproductive 2022 draft class and Justin Jefferson’s hamstring injury caused the Vikings to stumble to a 1-4 start. However, they fought back to .500 before Cousins tore his Achilles. O’Connell temporarily kept Minnesota afloat, getting everything he could out of Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens. Still, the injuries were too much, leading Minnesota to the same 7-10 record the Bears had.
With Cousins’ departure pending, it appeared that both teams were on separate glass elevators. However, Minnesota’s real plan came to fruition in the 2024 offseason.
Minnesota said goodbye to Cousins, who earned a contract worth $45 million per season with the Atlanta Falcons. The Vikings used that money to continue their free-agent strategy, signing Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Blake Cashman while still having money left to sign Aaron Jones.
They pushed most of that money into 2025 to circumvent $70.9 million in dead money, the third-largest number in the league behind the Denver Broncos and Giants. Still, the Vikings overcame that to become a Super Bowl contender in the NFC.
Like Bears fans one year ago, many could look at Adofo-Mensah’s plan and think the “competitive rebuild” was the way to go. But it also has yet to play out thanks to the infrastructures each team has created.
Williams could be the quarterback prospect many projected him to be coming out of USC. However, nobody knows, thanks to a fledgling head coach (Matt Eberflus) and the wrong hire as offensive coordinator (Shane Waldron).
The Bears have also surrounded Williams with a roster similar to the one the Poles inherited, making Williams the football equivalent of a Ferrari on 8 Mile.
Meanwhile, the Vikings have built an infrastructure around their quarterback. It started with inherited pieces such as Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw, and Brian O’Neill. Adofo-Mensah added to it with Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson and his list of free-agent signings.
The emphasis on quality of quantity continued when they traded up for J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner in last year’s draft. The Vikings created a roster that Zimmer wanted when he referred to his team as “a house of cards” in 2021.
But then there’s Kevin O’Connell, who has put this all together. O’Connell built his own infrastructure on the coaching staff, adding Brian Flores as defensive coordinator after the 2022 season and Josh McCown as quarterbacks coach for this season. The result is where a solid baseline like Cousins, a journeyman like Sam Darnold, or potentially a blue-chip prospect like McCarthy could succeed.
Perhaps the Bears are one piece away, like hiring Ben Johnson or another offensive mind to be their next head coach. But the best way to look at it is two guys building a car. While the Vikings kept the framework, the Bears started from scratch and threw things together from the scrap heap. It’s why Adofo-Mensah’s rebuild has been humming along while the Bears seem to have been running with a flat.