Lewis Cine Is In the Doghouse At The Worst Time
Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
Since 2012, the Minnesota Vikings have enjoyed above-average, and often elite safety play. Harrison Smith has been at the forefront of it all, consistently ranking among the league’s best safeties year after year. Aside from Smith, Minnesota had guys like Andrew Sendejo, Anthony Harris, and Cam Bynum all turn out to be productive players for the Vikings’ defense. Naturally, fans expected former first-round pick Lewis Cine to follow the path of his predecessors by becoming a key contributor for the Vikings for many years to come.
Despite the Vikings’ penchant for developing safeties, Cine has yet to develop into the player Minnesota was hoping for. Not even remotely close. Sure, not all first-round picks live up to the high expectations placed upon them. However, Cine has been completely invisible early in his career. Even after he returned from the gruesome knee injury he suffered in his rookie year, Cine has made little progress in his development three years into his professional career.
The reality of the situation set in when the newly signed Bobby McCain — who has been on the Vikings roster for less than a week — appeared to be above Cine in the pecking order at training camp. The 30-year-old McCain, not the once-promising rookie, was the one taking second-team snaps at safety alongside Theo Jackson.
Furthermore, Cine hasn’t even been practicing over the past couple of days. These recent developments don’t bode well for Cine, who seems to be out of Brian Flores’ favor. He was on the hot seat before training camp, but this may mark the beginning of the end of Cine’s time with the Vikings.
Lewis himself understood the importance of this year’s training camp. “This [year] is huge. This is huge for me.” Cine said. “On a personal note, I think I really gotta show out and re-ball out and prove why I should be here and why I deserve to be playing in the NFL.” A rare die-hard Lewis Cine truther may point to the fact that Kevin O’Connell confirmed that Cine is simply dealing with lower leg soreness and is considered day-to-day. So why be overdramatic about a minor injury?
The cause for concern is due to the Vikings no longer treating Cine like a former first-round pick. Ever since Flores has taken over as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, Cine has been relegated to Flores’ doghouse. The same exact doghouse that former Dolphins cornerback Noah Igbinoghene found himself in while Flores was in Miami, and it’s the same doghouse that Andrew Booth finds himself in currently as he struggles to earn first-team reps.
Flores values players with high Football IQ, and the safety position is pivotal in his defense. In order for players like Cine to get playing time, they need to fully understand the playbook and be capable of processing and relaying information quickly. Former Vikings linebacker turned media analyst Ben Leber spoke candidly about Lewis Cine on VikesNow back in March:
"We keep hearing that Lewis Cine can't pick up the playbook. They ask these guys to do a lot. There's a lot of double calls in Flores' system and if you can't process the double calls, then guess what? You're going to be in his doghouse."
– @nacholeber on #Vikings S Lewis Cine pic.twitter.com/SVhEdrQsbx
— VikesNow (@VikesNow) March 7, 2024
“They ask these guys to do a lot. You talk to Harrison Smith and some of these guys about Flores’ defense. It’s not necessarily verbally complex, but you have to be able to process a lot of information.” Leber said. “They’re going to call a certain style of blitz. Now if you get a certain formation, you’re going to check out of it, you’re going to go to a different defense. There’s a lot of double calls in his system, and if you can’t process the double calls and when you’re supposed to run them or not run them, guess what? You’re going to be in his doghouse.”
Another factor at play here is that Cine was drafted in 2022, back when Ed Donatell was the Vikings defensive coordinator. Donatell’s Vic Fangio-inspired Cover 6 heavy scheme is drastically different from the style of defense Brian Flores likes to run. In addition to running a ton of Cover 6, Donatell also prioritized Cover 2, quarters coverage, and zone match principles.
All of those concepts are very familiar to Cine, because he played in a very similar defensive scheme during his time at Georgia. Once the Vikings hired Flores as their new defensive coordinator, Lewis was no longer a schematic fit for Minnesota’s defense.
Thus, Cine has been buried on the depth chart and he appears as if he’s being slowly phased out of Flores’ defense. When the Vikings suffered a string of injuries at safety last year, Jackson’s number was called before Cine’s. By the end of the 2023 season, rookie safety Jay Ward finished with more snaps on defense than Cine did.
Now heading into training camp, Cine was the sixth safety on the depth chart behind Smith, Bynum, Metellus, Jackson, and Ward. Now, he’s behind the five aforementioned players, plus newcomer McCain and now NaJee Thompson, who just changed positions from cornerback to safety.
The odds of Cine making the final 53-man roster are getting slimmer by the day. He would have needed to have the best training camp of his career for Flores to contemplate keeping him on the roster. That’s not the case right now. Even if Lewis stands out in the preseason, he may be auditioning for a roster spot on a different team, and not the Vikings.
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