Notre Dame’s Kyle Hamilton or Georgia’s Lewis Cine? A look at the Minnesota Vikings’ draft decision
Leading up to the 2022 NFL Draft, former Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton was the consensus No. 1 player at his position. However, when positional value was factored into draft decisions, he ended up falling out of the top 10.
The Minnesota Vikings were in need of a safety to play alongside former Irish great Harrison Smith, and with the No. 12 pick, they could’ve grabbed Hamilton. Instead they made a trade. The Vikings sent the No. 12 and 46 overall picks to the Detroit Lions in exchange for three selections: No. 32 overall (Round 1), No. 34 overall (Round 2) and No. 66 overall (Round 3). With the final pick of Day 1, Minnesota took Georgia safety Lewis Cine.
If they were planning to take a safety, which was always a need, why didn’t they grab Hamilton? And in hindsight, was that the right move?
Thor Nystrom of NBC Sports EDGE recently joined The Will Ragatz Show and discussed the two defensive backs, saying while Hamilton is the better player, Cine was the best value given what the Vikings wanted to accomplish this draft.
“I loved Cine, it’s just with Hamilton, you put him up in the echelon of some of the better safety prospects you’ve seen over the last 20 years,” Nystrom said. “He’s at or near the very top of that list.
“But Cine is a better prospect in the slot that they got him. They couldn’t have figured that in the moment (of the trade), so I think that was a pretty nice way of staying at the same position to recoup some of that value.”
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Both defensive backs came out of college a year early, departing after three seasons. In his time with the Bulldogs, Cine played in 31 games and notched 144 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 14 pass break ups and two interceptions. The 6-1, 200-pound defensive back earned third-team All-American honors for his work during Georgia’s 2021 national championship season.
Interestingly, Hamilton also played in 31 games at Notre Dame, recording 138 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, eight picks and 16 pass breakups. He was a second-team All-American in 2021 despite missing nearly half of the season with a knee injury. At 6-4 and 224 pounds, Hamilton is a big safety.
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While the statistics are similar, Hamilton and Cine have different strengths, often related to their sizes.
“I think the Ravens were celebrating the fact that they got Kyle Hamilton, but they’re different players,” Nystrom said. “Hamilton is the deep safety that has the frame of a linebacker, and you can play him in the box.
“Cine is versatile in his own way. He’s a really interesting guy in that he does all of the prototypical free safety stuff, but his game is imbued with throwback, strong safety, hit man, Ronnie Lott, ‘I’m coming for you over the middle and you’re going to hear my footsteps’ kind of thing.”
The Georgia defensive back is good in coverage and doesn’t miss many tackles (9.3 percent). Hamilton is in the same boat — he missed just 6.5 percent of attempted tackles in 2021 — but Nystrom argues Cine has more of that “hit-man” mentality.
It remains to be determined which pick will work out better between the two first rounders, but the sum of what the Vikings got (which involved several other trades) may outdo Hamilton’s abilities, per Nystrom.
“You sort of lament not getting Hamilton, but then when it becomes Hamilton for Cine, X, X and X — you’re adding the four other guys they got because of the trade downs — the equation becomes a little bit different.”
