According to Lewis Cine, if one team kept their word, he wouldn’t have been sitting at No. 32 for the Minnesota Vikings to take him at the 2022 NFL draft.
“I had a team at twenty-seven. They know who they are. I ain’t gonna’ say no names. It was at twenty-seven,” Cine said, during an appearance on The Richard Sherman Podcast. “The whole process—if you’re there, we’re gonna pick you. They moved down to the first pick of the second round. I was like, damn, they did me just so dirty.”
Cine didn’t have to say a name after revealing the team moved down to the first pick of the second round. The team he’s clearly talking about is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
There’s always a possibility the Bucs were thinking they could get away with trading back, accumulating more draft assets and still getting their guy in the second round. If that was the case, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah ruined their plans by snatching the hard-hitting safety out of Georgia off the board at the end of the first round.
The Bucs ended up using the No. 33 pick on Houston defensive end Logan Hall.
After hearing about the draft situation, Cine’s new teammate, Vikings cornerback Akayleb Evans posted some words of encouragement on social media.
It’s all good brudda ended up in the perfect spot @LewisCine 🤝 https://t.co/kD0wA4kYd0
— Akayleb Evans (@AkaylebEvans) May 11, 2022
The Bucs might have the greatest quarterback of all time in Tom Brady, but Cine landed in a spot where he’ll get to pick the brain of one of the game’s best safeties in the last decade, Harrison Smith.
When it comes to strictly personal development, it doesn’t get much better than that.
