Former Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman is clearly enjoying the life of sunshine and palm trees these days in Florida, but that doesn’t mean he stopped keeping a close eye on things in the upcoming 2022 NFL draft.
It was only a year ago that he was at the center of the madness as the head decision-maker of player personnel. This time, however, he’s been able to step back and watch everything as a spectator.
KSTP 5’s Darren Wolfson spoke with Spielman in an interview, and during an appearance on “Scoops with Doogie,” he said there was one player in particular the former GM kept coming back to when talking about the Vikings picking at No. 12 in the first round.
“[Spielman] thinks the world of Kyle Hamilton,” said Wolfson. “He didn’t outwardly say if Hamilton falls to 12, Kwesi [Adofo-Mensah] better pull that trigger uber fast. But he laid out, seeing Kyle in person at opening game—Notre Dame, Florida State in Tallahassee. Rick was in Tallahassee for that game. I got the sense the way he was gushing about Kyle Hamilton and the way you could use Kyle Hamilton in so many different ways.
“…I got the sense talking to Rick that if he were running the Vikings draft this year, he would sprint to the podium to draft Hamilton.”
Don’t sleep on the possibility of Adofo-Mensah putting on his running shoes and doing the same.
Hamilton is arguably the best player in the entire draft regardless of position. The Vikings are sitting comfortably at safety right now with Harrison Smith in the defensive backfield, but at 33 years of age, it’s getting to the point where the team seriously needs to start thinking about the future.
If Smith goes down with an injury, the cupboard is bare for the team at safety. Granted, they do have Camryn Bynum returning, but this will be his first season as an NFL starter with Xavier Woods leaving in free agency.
So there are serious question marks for the Vikings at safety, and a versatile playmaker like Hamilton could be capable of answering every single one of them.
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