Cine on the move?

MaroonBells wrote:

We can criticize the move down and letting Hamilton get by us, but let's not pretend we should've "Cine" this coming. Top 50 recruit, All-SEC for a very good national champion Georgia defense. Ran a 4.37. Cowboys had him ranked 13th overall. Compare that pedigree to 6th rounder Theo Jackson who is likely to take his place on the roster. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. 

I hope there's something Kwesi and the scouting staff can learn from Cine, but I have no idea what it would be (other than maybe the move down). Roughly half of the players drafted in the 1st round never pay off, and that percentage never really improves over time.

Totally agree.  Players bust all the time.  Sometimes you draft a guy that’s plus athleticism and hope it works out, because you don’t have to be super smart to play football.  I’m not trying to say that we should have seen it coming, I’m just commenting on Havoc’s comment that Cine was a “crazy good” player who’s just struggling with the yips due to his injury.  Dude’s been given 10 NFL defensive snaps over 21 games as a first rounder across two coaches, and two schemes.  Something is massively wrong there, and we’re not hearing any reports about his injury not healing up properly, and we are hearing reports of him mentally not getting it.

You eventually hear the truth when the saga ends

I suspect he struggled with the playbook
I suspect his broken leg hurt him on-going physically
I suspect the stress and humiliation of this all took a toll emotionally and ultimately his attitude.

StickierBuns wrote:

Man, regardless of what anyone might think of KAM, and I've defended him but the jury is still very much out....that 2022 Draft was fucking brutal:

• A part time starting RB, maybe? (Chandler)
• A #3 WRer (maybe) after years of injuries (Nailor)
• A starting RG....I guess? (Ingram)

I like KAM too but yeah that wasn't his finest hour. A weekend to learn from and it seems like he has.

medaille wrote:

Totally agree.  Players bust all the time.  Sometimes you draft a guy that’s plus athleticism and hope it works out, because you don’t have to be super smart to play football.  I’m not trying to say that we should have seen it coming, I’m just commenting on Havoc’s comment that Cine was a “crazy good” player who’s just struggling with the yips due to his injury.  Dude’s been given 10 NFL defensive snaps over 21 games as a first rounder across two coaches, and two schemes.  Something is massively wrong there, and we’re not hearing any reports about his injury not healing up properly, and we are hearing reports of him mentally not getting it.

Exactly. He was a great college player, but he broke his leg playing special teams and was consistently running with the 2nd or 3rd unit in training camp.  He was never a legitimate threat to Bynum or Metellus and the team has added other backup safeties since drafting him.  The mental grind of the NFL must be too much for him.  Which is a shame because he seems like a great dude personality wise and he's got crazy athletic traits.

supafreak84 wrote:


Yes, while you were touting Cine and Asamoah as future stars....Supa saw it coming

Man, regardless of what anyone might think of KAM, and I've defended him but the jury is still very much out....that 2022 Draft was fucking brutal:

[list]
[*]A part time starting RB, maybe? (Chandler)
[*]A #3 WRer (maybe) after years of injuries (Nailor)
[*]A starting RG....I guess? (Ingram)
[/list]

Vikings possibly fearing a training camp injury with subsequent settlement. But if so, why don't they just cut him instead of sitting him? Something's off.

Shame, but at least he would be walking away with some coin ... $7.4m earnings so far.

NorseFeathers wrote:

Vikings possibly fearing a training camp injury with subsequent settlement. But if so, why don't they just cut him instead of sitting him? Something's off.

Shame, but at least he would be walking away with some coin ... $7.4m earnings so far.

Apparently, he's had an injury. KOC mentioned this a few days ago.

medaille
Like what is your evidence for thinking this?  To me, there’s no evidence that he’s a crazy good player at the NFL level.  He had like two defensive snaps through 4 games in 2022 and eight snaps in all of 2023.  They haven’t let him get on the field.  On special teams, I’ve never noticed him playing, even though he’s got snaps.  You’d think that with his speed, he’d be making an impact as a gunner, but he’s not.
 
For me, I’m chalking it up as he was just a super fast guy on a loaded Georgia defense that didn’t have to know too much, and is too dumb to understand NFL defenses.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he lost some speed from the injury and now has little redeeming qualities.

It's been a while, so my memory is sparse, but did he have any real "intelligent" type attributes/highlights in college?  I just remember him having a lot of speed and tackling hard.

I think it’s safe to say you watched him very little if at all in college. I’m a Bulldog fan, I watched him play a lot.

It should be obvious I was referring to college as that’s the last place he’s had any real snaps. Yes, he was an excellent college player. He played as a freshman - at Georgia. You have to be pretty special to start as a freshman on a Georgia defense. 

As for mental game, he was excellent. He showed excellent (among the top in all of college football) awareness in the run. If you were to design a nickel safety taking the slot, you’d have him. Instincts and reaction were also top tier. Football intelligence shows out in all of his tape. It was a high rated attribute for him coming out. 

Personally, I preferred Hamilton as a player, but I get why Kwesi liked him and he probably fit what they were looking for a little better. 

In his rookie year, he didn’t seem to have any trouble with the defensive playbook, his struggles looked like NFL offense recognition. This is common for backend defenders seeing highly complex NFL offenses for the first time. 

At the end of the day, we saw very little of Cine. Just four games in (his third game) he suffered a devastating leg injury. He had a compound fracture to go along with ligament damage. It was the kind of injury that was could be career ending not too long ago. 

So, Lewis Cine we hear is struggling. The original report here however is based on his not practicing. The coach said he had a leg injury, so perhaps that’s why? Either way, if you want to comment, that’s cool, but you need to know at least something about the guy if you want to make a rational point.

Maybe its just the fact that he got some good money as a 1st round draft pick, suffered a terrible injury and decided the NFL dream wasn't what it was supposed to be. Walk away with some cash and save yourself from further injury and getting the shit beat out of you every Sunday as a player.

Greylock wrote:
Maybe its just the fact that he got some good money as a 1st round draft pick, suffered a terrible injury and decided the NFL dream wasn't what it was supposed to be. Walk away with some cash and save yourself from further injury and getting the shit beat out of you every Sunday as a player.

he can retire at any time if that was why he was sitting out.

Havoc wrote:
medaille Like what is your evidence for thinking this?  To me, there’s no evidence that he’s a crazy good player at the NFL level.  He had like two defensive snaps through 4 games in 2022 and eight snaps in all of 2023.  They haven’t let him get on the field.  On special teams, I’ve never noticed him playing, even though he’s got snaps.  You’d think that with his speed, he’d be making an impact as a gunner, but he’s not.   For me, I’m chalking it up as he was just a super fast guy on a loaded Georgia defense that didn’t have to know too much, and is too dumb to understand NFL defenses.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he lost some speed from the injury and now has little redeeming qualities.

It's been a while, so my memory is sparse, but did he have any real "intelligent" type attributes/highlights in college?  I just remember him having a lot of speed and tackling hard.

I think it’s safe to say you watched him very little if at all in college. I’m a Bulldog fan, I watched him play a lot.

It should be obvious I was referring to college as that’s the last place he’s had any real snaps. Yes, he was an excellent college player. He played as a freshman - at Georgia. You have to be pretty special to start as a freshman on a Georgia defense. 

As for mental game, he was excellent. He showed excellent (among the top in all of college football) awareness in the run. If you were to design a nickel safety taking the slot, you’d have him. Instincts and reaction were also top tier. Football intelligence shows out in all of his tape. It was a high rated attribute for him coming out. 

Personally, I preferred Hamilton as a player, but I get why Kwesi liked him and he probably fit what they were looking for a little better. 

In his rookie year, he didn’t seem to have any trouble with the defensive playbook, his struggles looked like NFL offense recognition. This is common for backend defenders seeing highly complex NFL offenses for the first time. 

At the end of the day, we saw very little of Cine. Just four games in (his third game) he suffered a devastating leg injury. He had a compound fracture to go along with ligament damage. It was the kind of injury that was could be career ending not too long ago. 

So, Lewis Cine we hear is struggling. The original report here however is based on his not practicing. The coach said he had a leg injury, so perhaps that’s why? Either way, if you want to comment, that’s cool, but you need to know at least something about the guy if you want to make a rational point.

What?  Who cares if he was a great college player?  Lots of great college players end up busting in the NFL.  

The fact that Cine was a first round pick...  AND the FIRST pick of our new GM and HC...  AND he was running with the 2nd and 3rd unit in training camp should tell you something.  The guy was a first round pick and was playing special teams with two late round safeties ahead of him on the depth chart.  Now another guy in Theo Jackson we picked off a teams practice squad is showing out in front of him.

I'm sure the broken leg didn't help his development at all, but there were red flags when he couldn't unseat Bynum or Metellus (who are good NFL players) and they had him playing special teams exclusively.  We're three years in and he's S5 on the depth chart.  He's a bust.

Funny thing is that 22 draft could have been fantastic. Very good players were sitting there when KAM gave it away.

MAD GAINZ wrote:

What?  Who cares if he was a great college player?  Lots of great college players end up busting in the NFL.  

The fact that Cine was a first round pick...  AND the FIRST pick of our new GM and HC...  AND he was running with the 2nd and 3rd unit in training camp should tell you something.  The guy was a first round pick and was playing special teams with two late round safeties ahead of him on the depth chart.  Now another guy in Theo Jackson we picked off a teams practice squad is showing out in front of him.

I'm sure the broken leg didn't help his development at all, but there were red flags when he couldn't unseat Bynum or Metellus (who are good NFL players) and they had him playing special teams exclusively.  We're three years in and he's S5 on the depth chart.  He's a bust.

How did a scouting department that hit home runs with Metellus and Bynum whiff so badly with Cine?

Knucklehead wrote:
How did a scouting department that hit home runs with Metellus and Bynum whiff so badly with Cine?

Probably because these commodities are humans...As much as we want it to be 100% science it just aint. Maybe Donatell had something to do with his development?

I don't believe that same Scouting staff was kept intact after that draft. I believe it was a holdover from the MZ/RS era. 

Someone will correct me if I am wrong.

purplefaithful wrote:

Probably because these commodities are humans...As much as we want it to be 100% science it just aint. Maybe Donatell had something to do with his development?

I don't believe that same Scouting staff was kept intact after that draft. I believe it was a holdover from the MZ/RS era. 

Someone will correct me if I am wrong.

People call it a crapshoot and then wonder why there are misses. The best scouting staffs in the NFL have dozens of misses on their resumes. Really weird we dwell on this so much.

What a Cine, I also wanted Hamilton but Oh well that was a big miss. Spelly hit it with both Bynum and Mettelus at Safety so that came make up for Kwesi's miss. I am very surprised Spelly is not a GM. He was well above average on draft and free agents. Not great but above average. Right now, Kwesi biggest hit is Addison, but he is a first rounder, and you need a few more than that.

minny65 wrote:
What a Cine, I also wanted Hamilton but Oh well that was a big miss.  Spelly hit it with both Bynum and Mettelus at Safety so that came make up for Kwesi's miss.  I am very surprised Spelly is not a GM.  He was well above average on draft and free agents.  Not great but above average.  Right now, Kwesi biggest hit is Addison, but he is a first rounder, and you need a few more than that.

Don't forget Kwesi hired O'Connell and together they established the team culture, which is one of the bright spots. Kwesi also shed mountains of salary by making tough decisions on Kendricks, Thielen, P2, Barr and Cook. I didn't agree with all of them--I would've tried harder to keep Cousins and Hunter--but the Vikings were able to replace both in the draft. 

Vikings now have a much younger roster and a shit ton of cap space going into 2025, a year that should see them hand the keys to the offense over to their 1st round draft pick. I like where we stand.  

But at the end of the day Kwesi will be judged by how well McCarthy does. That's all anyone will care about.

Spielman was slightly above average. He’s probably the Cousins of GMs. His teams consistently had enough talent to hover around the edge of making/missing the playoffs. In my mind, he had too many draft misses, but he had a lot of homeruns. He never really was able to get both sides of the ball figured out at the same time. His biggest failures are his lack of solving the QB position and his taking his entire tenure to get a functional OLine, which he tried to achieve by replacing his only good players and not replacing his bad players.

He probably deserves to be an NFL GM, but nobody wants an old, pretty good, but not good enough GM. They want the guy that bring them a championship, not a guy that’s going to linger around edge of the playoffs, and they'll risk busting to risk winning big.

medaille wrote:
Spielman... probably deserves to be an NFL GM, but nobody wants an old, pretty good, but not good enough GM.  They want the guy that bring them a championship, not a guy that’s going to linger around edge of the playoffs, and they'll risk busting to risk winning big.

Spot on. And even though we love the Vikings and many of us think well enough about Spielman, I think the national narrative mostly see the Vikes as just another team. So to most, RS was GM of a mostly average team for a long time and never got to the dance. That resume is a tough sell to owners and fans.

EDIT- Oh, and regarding Cine... if he's cut that's one of the biggest busts in franchise history. Sad! But it happens.

Yea, I was just sticking with the thread - Cine and the Safety position

Don't forget Kwesi hired O'Connell and together they established the team culture, which is one of the bright spots. Kwesi also shed mountains of salary by making tough decisions on Kendricks, Thielen, P2, Barr and Cook. I didn't agree with all of them--I would've tried harder to keep Cousins and Hunter--but the Vikings were able to replace both in the draft.

Vikings now have a much younger roster and a shit ton of cap space going into 2025, a year that should see them hand the keys to the offense over to their 1st round draft pick. I like where we stand.

But at the end of the day Kwesi will be judged by how well McCarthy does. That's all anyone will care about.