The Vikings have hired Ryan Grigson for a senior personnel role, per a club announcement. Grigson, once the GM of the Colts, will work under new Minnesota GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. 
Grigson, 49, has been in the NFL ranks since 1999. His most recent stop came in 2020, when he served as a senior football advisor for Browns GM Andrew Berry. The two had history and a solid working relationship, but Berry brought him in for more than just familiarity.
“[Grigson] is here because I think he is very good,” Berry said at the time of the hire in 2020. “He has a very established track record as a personnel evaluator from his time in St. Louis at the time, Philly and then obviously, Indianapolis. General Manager experience, rebuilt the Colts into a winner very quickly, Executive of the Year. And that is something that is valuable to me.”
It’s a similar story this time — Adofo-Mensah and Grigson overlapped in Cleveland, where they both managed key leadership decisions. Still, Grigson is best known for his tenure as Colts GM, where he captured Executive of the Year honors in his first year at the helm. The Colts went 49-31 during Grigson’s five year run, though they failed to qualify for the playoffs in those final two years.
As a Colts fan
I’m sure Grigson is useful at something when he’s beneath the GM level, but he’s an ominous guy for a team with perpetual offensive line troubles to hire.
Yeah, let’s not forget this was the guy that traded a first round pick for Trent Richardson and drafted Phillip Dorset when the Colts were set at wideout, but lacked blocking (in addition to the fact that Dorset sucked in his own right)
Good lord. I forgot about Trent Richardson entirely. What a trade that was. Using a first round draft pick on a running back is a bad enough bet without betting a first round pick on a running back who’s already bad in the NFL.
I actually didn’t have as much of a problem with the Richardson trade at the time, because he had a decent rookie year and it was expected that a better team could get more out of him. Problem is, the Colts had NO offensive line and gave up a freaking first round pick for him. For a player who just had potential, that was too rich-especially because he, as we saw, flopped. What I’m saying is, as bad as the Richardson move turned out to be, it wasn’t the worst thing he did as GM, though it’s easily the most obvious. He just built a mountain of ineptitude through a body of inferior work.
The other moves-Dorset, for instance-and the struggles between Grigson, Pagano, and Pep Hamilton regarding the offense and the personnel and tight end sets and Luck and so on-were absolutely horrendous. Grigson proved that he absolutely couldn’t be trusted with picks at all, and had verbal sparring matches with players in his office. He is, in my opinion, possibly the worst GM I’ve ever watched in real time, with Baalke as the only comparison the last decade.
I agree that the Richardson trade is probably easier to criticize in hindsight. However, as you stated, not having an offensive line wasn’t going to work out. Furthermore, I believe a first round pick was too rich at the time given the fact that Richardson had hardly proven himself yet in addition to the fact that you weren’t getting him for his entire rookie deal. I understand the value of his potential, but I thought the compensation was a bit too high
I agree with all of that.
This guy is bad on an Adam Gase/Ryan Pace type level. This hire is the poster child for cronyism in the NFL. Zero qualifications, plenty of powerful friends. The Vikings will probably spend the next 10 yrs looking up to the Lions in the standings. Maybe that will send a message to the owner.
If your intent is tackling the hiring inequalities, this comment obfuscates that point. Grigson made some unpopular decisions, but not even close to zero qualifications.
Grigson was 49-31 over 5 years (zero seasons under .500 with 3 playoff wins) and recognized as Executive of the Year once. Pace is 48-65 over 7 years (four seasons under .500 with no playoff wins).
Gase was a coach, so that’s not relevant.
Grigson’s success may or may not have been in large part due to being gifted a bearded individual by the name of Andrew