The Vikings’ disastrous 2022 NFL Draft class will haunt them for a long time

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A new floor in Minnesota’s factory of sadness.

The Minnesota Vikings have made some truly great draft picks in the over the years, but one year will live in infamy. Safety Lewis Cine was waived on Tuesday, just two years removed from being the No. 32 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. It wasn’t a surprising move given Cine’s rookie season ended in injury, then his sophomore campaign was littered with bad play and reports of terrible practices.

Cine not panning out isn’t a story in and of itself, but the spectacular screw up by the Vikings’ front office during in the 2022 draft is. Not only did the team fail to land an impact player, but they actively made their rivals better, while passing on one of the best young defensive players in the NFL.

The Vikings are on the clock…

A dream scenario has aligned for the Minnesota Vikings when they were on the clock at No. 12 in 2022. A team in dire need of secondary help realized that starting safety Harrison Smith was getting older, and his contract was bloated. In the lead up to the draft there was one clear-cut star player at the position and nobody else was close: Kyle Hamilton out of Notre Dame.

Not only did Hamilton have an ideal frame, ludicrous football IQ, and was one of college football’s best playmakers, but the romanticism of having Hamilton learn from another Notre Dame alum in Smith was just perfect. Hamilton’s skill was so pronounced that even with safety becoming a deemphasized position in the NFL most mocks had him going No. 8 to the Atlanta Falcons, and very few thought he’d fall out of the Top 10.

With time ticking down Vikings fans were ready to place their orders for Hamilton jerseys. The idea that there could be any other pick at No. 12 was unimaginable. Then it happened …

“The Minnesota Vikings have traded the No. 12 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Detroit Lions”

It’s one thing to trade down, but another entirely to trade with a division rival. Surely the Vikings got a haul, right? There’s no way in hell a team would allow a team they play twice each year to get better without getting a ransom in return. Then we saw the full trade unfold.

Detroit Lions receive: Pick No. 12 in the 2022 NFL Draft
Minnesota Vikings receive: Picks No. 32, No. 34 and No. 66 in the 2022 NFL Draft

This deal was barely a win for the Vikings. Based on the 2022 pick trade charts the Lions got 347 points and the Vikings got 435 points — tantamount to a net gain of a late second round pick. It would have been a questionable trade in isolation, but even more-so in allowing the Lions to get a receiver they coveted in Jameson Williams.

Williams hasn’t panned out for the Lions yet, but that’s immaterial to Minnesota’s decision. They gave up the ability to take a superstar lock at a position of need, to move all the way back, and get scant value. The clear and obvious move would have been to take the best player at No. 12 — especially when the Lions were desperate to move up. If they were going to be allowed into a hight draft position they should have been put through the ringer, at least for a future first round pick.

Instead Minnesota chose quantity over quality.

The Minnesota Vikings select: Lewis Cine, safety — The University of Georgia

It’s unclear what the Vikings saw in Lewis Cine in order to make him a first round pick. Graded anywhere from the 2nd to 3rd round by most draft analysts, a safe bet for where he’d land was in the middle of the second round.

Cine was an aggressive, hard-hitting safety with a knack for violence, but lacked ideal NFL size or fundamentals when it came to playing the ball in the air. In a lot of ways he was a throwback in-the-box safety in an era where safeties skewed more towards being pass defenders.

In a very real way the Vikings passes on a polished, perfect safety in Hamilton to take a project in Cine. The question was whether Cine would ever be as good as Hamilton, even if they roughed out those edges. That meant that hitting with the next Vikings’ picks would be critical to making this class pan out.

Minnesota trades to a rival again

Cine was a bit of a head scratcher, but the board was once again looking solid for Minnesota at pick No. 34. The two best options seemed to be either taking a cornerback, of which there were several good players on the board — or someone like running back Breece Hall, who would have been a brilliant fit with the writing on the wall about Dalvin Cook’s future in Minnesota.

“The Minnesota Vikings have traded the No. 34 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Green Bay Packers”

Not once, but twice the Vikings had traded with an in-division rival, once again allowing an opponent to take a receiver while they were still weak at defensive back. The Packers took Christian Watson, sending Minnesota a return of the 53rd and 59th picks. For the second time in two days the Vikings moved back without getting a great return. This time they gave up 175 points on the value chart and received 197 back.

The trade was so fair to the Packers that it did them a favor. There is no planet in which a team should be allowed to move up so far for such a paltry return, but once more the Vikings banked on quantity over quality.

Now the Vikings trade up

In a shell game of bad decisions, the board began to break badly for the Vikings right after they dropped out of the 34 spot. Auburn CB Roger McCreary was taken at No. 35, followed by Washington CB Kyle Gordon at No. 39. The run on corners was starting, and the Vikings still needed one.

Ultimately spooked they’d miss out, Minnesota sent the No. 53, No. 77 and No. 192 picks to the Cols for the No. 42. This time it represented the Vikings getting 142 points of picks in return for 172. In totality the trade with the Packers resulted in Minnesota losing 8 points of value and being forced to take the 7th cornerback off the board, rather than the 5th.

The player the Vikings got: Andrew Booth Jr. of Clemson. On paper this looked pretty good, as he was a 2nd round player who at times had 1st round potential, but there were concerns about his health out of the combine. Booth Jr. had to have surgery for a hernia, and there were other worries about his durability in the NFL.

Time was going to have to tell whether or not the trade was worth it.

The last two picks from their trades

After all the shuffling the Vikings were left with the No. 59 pick from the Packers and the No. 66 pick from the Lions. They took offensive guard Ed Ingram at No. 59 and linebacker Brian Asamoah at No. 66. Ingram was a mammoth reach who was projected as a 5th round pick. Asamoah was more or less drafted where people expected.

When the dust settled on the draft dealings the Vikings’ class looked extremely bad out of the gate. They managed to wheel and deal their way from having the No. 12 and No. 46 picks into ending up with no superstar potential, over drafting players, and coming away without much to show for it.

How did this all pan out?

BAD!

These series of events ended up being one of the saddest in recent draft history.

Lewis Cine: Waived on Tuesday
Andew Booth Jr.: Traded to Dallas for CB Nashon Wright, who they also waived Tuesday
Ed Ingram: Mediocre starting right guard
Brian Asomoah: Backup inside linebacker

What did the Vikings miss out on by trading around as they did?

Kyle Hamilton: 1st team All-Pro safety in 2023 (Could have taken at No. 12)

We can argue around their No. 46 pick and say they could have taken a different corner, or perhaps drafted James Cook to pair with his brother Dalvin in the backfield, but all that is moot considering Minnesota lost out on having one of the best defensive backs in the entire NFL for no reason.

This 2022 draft for Minnesota was a case of thinking you’re playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers, when in reality you were chewing on the pieces from Mouse Trap. The saving grace is that the Vikings have drafted pretty well in 2023 and 2024, which takes a lot of the pressure off that class — but it doesn’t remove the fact that this team managed to make one of the most epic screwups in recent draft history, and if Jameson Williams and Christian Watson break out it will haunt them for the next decade.