KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: We started off yesterday having a great player, and I think we added three more today. Started off with Andrew Booth, and he is somebody that I started watching when I was in Cleveland. Just a really good corner.
You talk, again, about smart, tough, competitive. He is that. Feisty. He will come up and challenge players. Challenge players in the pass game and challenge players in the run game. Competitive. Just explosive athlete. We're really excited to have him. I think we got great value for the pick. Again, he adds to what we're building in our defense.
You talk about Ed Ingram. Really good player. R.G. has this term, whenever an offensive lineman has good feet, he calls them Fred Astaire. He has Fred Astaire feet. I was watching Ingram, and I text R.G. I said, did you get the Fred Astaire? Yeah, I'm getting soft in my old age. He should have him. He said it was just a cut above. A cut below, sorry, but I think he is. He has incredible feet.
Really good feel for the game. Aggressive. Trying to finish people in the run game. Again, we're really excited with what we have in that room already, and we're excited to have him.
Lastly, Brian Asamoah. That was a special call for me. I told him, did you ever think you would fulfill your NFL dream with someone named Kwesi? People call me Kwesi. It's pronounced differently where my family is from. He is through the moon. That was a cool moment for both of us.
He's, man -- you talk about just the circle of life and all that stuff. I'm turning on the film. I see the name. He reminds me of JOK a little bit, really explosive. People talk about size all the time, but it's can you get off blocks? He doesn't stay blocked very long. He is explosive. He has the range in our passing game to do everything we ask him to do.
We're excited about him. Through the moon about the three players really and what we have on this team already.
Q. With Ed Ingram the Vikings have had a history of some high-profile players who have had allegations of violence against women. Are you concerned about the signal this sends with another player being added to the roster that has that history of allegations?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Again, those are serious allegations. We did extensive research with people in and around the situation, in and around the program, in and around him, and we are extremely comfortable with the person. But, again, understand the question and why you asked it.
Q. What are the value kind of constitutes in terms of that?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Lots of conversations. Digging, fact-finding, like everything else we do. You are trying to bet on the character of the person, and that's an issue that's serious to me and obviously is serious to everybody. I don't want to make light of it, and I don't want to speak up here like I'm an expert in all those things, but we take that very seriously here, both as an organization and me personally. Again, I think we're comfortable with the person.
Q. Did anyone in the Vikings organization talk to any of the accusers?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Again, I can't get into everything we do in our process, and I appreciate the question, but again, we're comfortable with the person.
Q. Did you attempt to find out if any of the things that he was accused of happened?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Again, I hate to keep repeating that, sorry, guys. I never want to be this rote guy up here. But we had an extensive process, and we're comfortable with the person?
Q. What in the process left you comfortable with him?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Knowing the character of the person, what you are getting, who he is on a day-to-day basis, his values. You're betting on the forward and you're betting on everything you were told, but, again, extensive process. We got to this place, and we feel comfortable with our decision.
Q. Booth said that he hasn't been healthy since he was in high school.
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Yeah.
Q. He hasn't played healthy since he was in high school, so, obviously, he is on the field. How do you vet that part out, and how do you feel confident that with the number of things kind of behind him?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: You talk about extensive conversations. I went and called his agent. We have a lot of data on players, and we saw different things. I watched him. I really loved the style of play he has. RG says this term, "It matters." It looks like it matters to him out there.
We're watching him play, and he didn't show up at the combine. So, you are doing your research, and I called the agent, and agent put me in touch with his trainer. I'm talking to the trainer. What was he running? How is he doing? He said, Kwes, this guy has never been healthy. He has had this hernia thing his whole career and he is getting it fixed. I thought he was a pretty good player as it is. The chance to maybe be even better, that was too good of a possibility to pass up, and ultimately that's why we came up in the draft.
Q. Do you think that's all put behind him now?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Yeah.
Q. He said he has never fully produced the way he could, but just the idea that a young kid has been hurt so much.
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: You can look at it the other way. Yeah. We had, again -- the doctors and I won't tell you exactly what I said to our team doctors. I was joking, but I was, like, you guys sure? Again, Tyler, his team, we have a great group of doctors here. I think we have some of the best experts in the country on these issues. We talked to the surgeon who -- all the people who are in his surgery and his rehab. Again, we feel good about the situation.
Q. Understanding that not everything can be modelled, how do you fit somebody with unknown workout data into your process in determining kind of where they go on your board?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: That's a great question. There's methods of guessing, right, and those aren't -- those are pretty imperfect. Ultimately, you kind of use your eyes. There's other data that's out there that kind of tells you how fast somebody might be going while they're playing. You can talk to the school, talk to -- get their GPS metrics and things like that. It's a lot of different things to your point.
Ultimately, there's some combination of covering a player isn't just speed. It's movement. It's length. It's ability to react quickly and foot quickness, it's all those things. We feel good about those package of things with him.
Q. You mentioned yesterday you talked to Brad Holmes in Detroit about potentially making trades. Did you also have a conversation with Brian about that?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: No, we did not.
Q. How did that all -- just random call?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: The phone rings, man, you pick it up. Obviously, there's people here in this organization that have been here longer than me, and those relations go back. Yeah, call was made. Obviously, we thought heavily about, again, doing another trade in our division for another receiver. To that point on the board, I don't believe we had a corner.
So believe me, the gravity of that was not lost on me. Again, you're supposed to make calculated decisions, and we did, and ultimately, I think we were rewarded with what we did in the end.
Q. In that situation do you have a good idea that they want a receiver?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: That was our assumption, yeah.
Q. When it comes to the linebacker position, maybe there's no such thing as undersized now. Just how important, I guess, now in today's game is the versatility with that position?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Yeah, to your point, the game is evolving. I think the skill sets that -- I always talk to our coordinators, the things that happen on a football field haven't changed. The importance of each thing maybe has changed, right? Maybe at the safety position do you need the thumper, the guy that's in the box the whole time? Maybe not. Maybe he needs to be able to play in the -- but those skill sets are kind of existing.
You talk about someone like Asamoah, I probably said it a different way, but you talk about somebody who has the skill set to do everything we need in this modern game, but I also think people a lot of times see small and don't actually ask themselves, does small actually translate to the skill set you're trying to do? If you ask that specific question, same thing with Jeremiah last year when I was in Cleveland. Yeah, he is 218, but show me the things that show up that he is 218. That's really the question you're trying to ask when you watch these guys.
Q. With Booth how quickly do you expect to see him on the field?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Obviously, we're working with him on his rehab and all that stuff, but we're excited to have him here. We have a competitive building. We like all the people we have, and he is going to contribute to it right away.
Q. Seems like everyone you have picked so far has been part of deep college football playoff teams. Curious, is there another factor that goes into play when you get to see guys in big games?
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: That's a great question. I remember reading when I was in grad school that there was a bias towards the NCAA Tournament in basketball. They take guys who did well in the NCAA Tournament and didn't end up turning out great.
At our level I think it probably is a little different just because you get to see them. It's like an NFL, it is pretty much what an NFL game looks like. We try to watch those games, but like everything we do, it's how much do you weight a 30-minute interview versus four years of scouting information on them? Same thing.
You want to weight the bowl game with its proper importance, and, again, it's nice to see them against different level competition, but also, a lot of times it's an out-of-conference game so you get to see them against different competition. It's great that all these guys are there, but I think that more speaks to the cultures they come from and the cultures we're trying to bring in here. Again, it's smart, tough, competitive, and those things ring true to championship teams, and that's what we want to be here.
Q. Those are different from a traditional bowl game where --
KWESI ADOFO-MENSAH: Yeah, true, true.
Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports