What are realistic expectations for Lewis Cine in Year 2?

On Monday, the Minnesota Vikings tweeted out a video of Lewis Cine doing a drill during OTA practice where he does quick foot movements, hits a sled and then smacks a tackling dummy. For anybody else, that would be routine. For Cine, that’s a miracle of medicine and testament to his perseverance. After he suffered a compound fracture in Week 4 against the New Orleans Saints — an injury so severe that he had to remain in London to immediately undergo surgery — you would not have expected him to be back on the field doing footbally things by late May.

While his progress is remarkable, when Cine talked to Twin Cities reporters during offseason workouts, he didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself when it came to the expectation of fully participating in training camp and being ready to play Week 1.

“It’s how my body feels, how my leg feels, that’s how I’m looking at it,” Cine said. “I’m not trying to look at far ahead.”

“My goal is to play and to be ready to play and that’s why I’m doing everything now to do that but at the same time even though my goal is to play in the season, I’m not going to…mess anything up or be in a rush,” he continued.

It wouldn’t be fair to put any expectations on Cine playing all the first-team reps in camp or starting Week 1 because of the trauma his body endured. One thing we know from seeing many injuries and recoveries in the past is that progress isn’t linear — there are ups and downs to coming back from something that severe.

Still, his progress should be exciting to the Vikings. Cine was a first-round pick because the team believed he could be a defensive centerpiece for years to come but his limited experience out of the gate didn’t go as planned. The former Georgia star lost a camp competition to Cam Bynum and then he played only played two total defensive snaps. Getting back on the practice field feels like he’s getting a fresh start.

Part of that is a new defensive coordinator. Last year the Vikings’ safeties were nearly exclusively playing in two-deep alignments, rarely coming up to the box and almost never blitzing. Brian Flores historically has required his safeties to play downhill in a much more aggressive style. That would seem to fit Cine’s stylings well.

“He likes to let you loose and let you go play ball,” Cine said of his early impressions of Flores. “I like to play fast football. I like to just let it loose and the fact that that’s his scheme, that’s what he’s known for, I’m really excited learning his scheme.”

Per PFF, Cine wasn’t asked to blitz much in college. Only 11 times in his 2021 season, in fact. He played about 35% of the time in the box or slot positions for Georgia, spending the majority as a free safety. But he did play 22 and 24 snaps in at the line of scrimmage in two games against Alabama in the SEC Championship and National Championship so he should have some comfort with the role.

But the idea of Cine playing in an aggressive role under Flores is more of a feel for his NFL skillset than what he did in college. His size/speed make him a missile, yet the previous scheme asked him to make a lot of calculations rather than just pushing the “fire” button.

Where the Vikings’ broad philosophy could match up with Flores’ scheme is in trying to figure out what players do best and putting them in position to do it. Last year Cine sat the bench in the first quarter of the season. We could see Flores, who has previously deployed three-safety personnel groups, use Cine for specific types of plays rather than asking him to do everything right away.

That brings us back to the part about expectations.

With Cine, they can be done in intervals. First, can he be ready to play by Week 1. If that’s the case, can he flash his first-round talent early on. And then, can he get more and more comfortable with the defense as a whole and look like a 1,000-snap player by midway or three quarters of the way into the season.

Because of his draft status, there will be a natural thought that he should be the next Ronnie Lott as soon as he’s ready to go. If it were that easy, more players would shine immediately in their careers. Even Harrison Smith had ups and downs early on before becoming a superstar in his third season and never looking back.

Cine deserves patience in 2023, even if that’s not the world we live in. The Vikings, however, are in a position to be patient with him. Smith is back. Josh Metellus and Cam Bynum can play.

That’s a far way off. For now, he’s at OTAs and that’s a good sign for Cine having a chance to shake off the very difficult start to his career and start moving forward.