Minnesota Vikings need to tread lightly in first round of the NFL Draft to avoid Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s biggest mistake
When the Minnesota Vikings selected Lewis Cine in the 2022 NFL Draft, the hope was they had found rthe successor to Harrison Smith. This year, the Vikings would be smart to avoid the same mistake with Dillon Thieneman.
The NFL Draft has been a sore subject for Minnesota Vikings fans over the last few years.
Just four years after former general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah‘s first NFL Draft in 2022, not a single player of their 10 selections is on the roster going into the 2026 season. That draft was brutal.
It started off with a trade down with division rival Detroit Lions, moving from 12th to 32nd, allowing them to select wide receiver Jameson Williams. The Vikings ended up taking Lewis Cine at 32nd overall, and they need to avoid taking the same kind of player this year.
Minnesota Vikings need to avoid Lewis Cine mistake with Dillon Thieneman
The idea with selecting Lewis Cine when they did made a lot of sense at the time. Head coach Kevin O’Connell hired Ed Donatell to run Vic Fangio’s defense. Cine was meant to be the catalyst on the back end for him as a point and shoot safety to fill gaps in the run game.
Ultimately, it didn’t work out for multiple reasons. It wasn’t just the compound fracture, he couldn’t fit with what Brian Flores wanted to do. His instincts and reaction time slowed down considerably from his time at Georgia, and he struggled to be a versatile player, which is required in Flores’ defense.
The Vikings ended up cutting Cine after training camp in 2024, and they would be smart to avoid a potential mistake with Dillon Thieneman of the Oregon Ducks.
It’s not going to be a popular opinion with Thieneman. He is far and away the No. 1 option for the Vikings, according to my mock draft tracker, which collects mock drafts from January 1st until the morning of the NFL Draft. He has accounted for 117 selections of the 386 mock drafts (30.3%).
It’s a nuanced discussion comparing Thieneman to Cine. They are not the same in every way, but there are a lot of similarities. Like Cine, Thieneman’s best role would be a point and shoot defender lining up 12-15 yards off the line of scrimmage and filling the run from depth.
He’s often described as a player who should play single high safety, but I didn’t see that at all. What I saw on film was a player who struggled in coverage. While he ran a 4.35-second 40-yard dash, that speed didn’t show up on film nearly enough, especially in coverage, when he would get turned around and struggle with his transitions when playing in a deep half.
On the other end of the spectrum, keeping him in the box is a difficult ask. Thieneman is only a few pounds heavier than the 199 pounds that Cine weighed in before the NFL Draft in 2022. He gets walloped in the box by running backs consistently, which is not something that helps the run defense one bit.
The Vikings don’t need a safety who is more of a specialist. He would thrive as that point-and-shoot defender in a Fangio-inspired defense, but in Flores’ defense, that role really doesn’t exist. They would be better off with a player who is more of that versatile weapon, such as Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Caleb Downs, or Treydan Stukes.
It would be smart for the Vikings to avoid making said mistake.
