The Vikings used their top two 2022 draft picks on defensive backs, but they didn’t have either of them on the field as much as they would have hoped last season.
First-round safety Lewis Cine broke his tibia and fibula in his third appearance of the season and second-round cornerback Andrew Booth played in six games before having knee surgery in November. Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell gave a positive update on Cine from the Scouting Combine last week and he did so again at a Thursday press conference.
O’Connell said “there’s hope that he could potentially be part of our OTAs” and mentioned late May as a time when that might be possible. O’Connell suggested that Booth will be a little bit further along, but still not ready to do everything by that point in the offseason calendar.
“We’re looking for those guys to make a huge impact here moving forward,” O’Connell said, via the team’s website. “[Booth] will probably be limited in OTAs but ready for training camp, so hopefully everything we’re trying to do is building toward getting those guys on the progression that we like to do through the reps of OTAs to have them in peak shape leaving here and then understanding we’ll have the ramp-up period early in training camp, and then we build up to that opener.”
The Vikings defense could use all the help it can get and the team will be hoping 2022’s top two picks will help to provide it.