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Quick hitters: Mike Hughes press conference

Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman stepped up to the mike to discuss their newest cornerback

2018 NFL Draft
He’s on the big screen now!
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

So it was a quiet but fun night for us beat writers down in the belly of Twin Cities Orthopedic Performance Center. Us beat writers enjoyed the new digs while bemoaning the fact that none of the TV’s in our room had a working sound system (we had four on the draft, one on the Celtics/Bucs game and one on the hockey games).

Then, after hours of reading Twitter and spoiling picks for each other, the Vikings were finally on the clock and Commissioner Goodell read out Minnesota’s newest draft pick.

That sent us into a frenzy of typing that was only broken by someone with the Vikings letting us know Rick and Zim would be arriving soon. Now, as I am no Ted Glover, I will leave the full reactions to his more-than-capable hands, but I thought I’d provide some Twitter-boosted highlights from last night’s press conference with the two top guys on our favorite football team.

Here we go!

Spielman started off by talking a little bit about the team’s pick, Mike Hughes.

So it’s pretty clear the Vikings love what Hughes brings to the table, versatility-wise. And the topic that was brought up next was one that many here on the Daily Norseman were talking about during the draft: trading down.

So clearly, the Vikings valued Hughes highly, even with a number of offensive linemen still on the board. Then Spielman was asked about the elephant in the room with Hughes: his off-the-field issues.

Much like with Dalvin Cook, it appears as though the Vikings did plenty of investigative and scouting work in looking into whether the sexual assault allegations were enough to eventually be founded. They clearly did not, and though I can’t find a tweet mentioning it, Spielman mentioned that they took the idea of picking Hughes all the way up to the Wilf’s to ensure they were also okay with taking certain players with character questions.

The talk then shifted to questions about what kinds of expectations the Vikings have for their new 21-year old cornerback.

So it’s pretty clear that they don’t expect Hughes to contribute a whole lot early on, but he’ll be good depth for them and is ready to get to work. And finally, before I move on to Mike Zimmer, and because I know people will be asking about this in the comments, yes, Spielman was asked and did answer a question about the offensive line prospects remaining in the draft.

So that’s basically everything from Spielman’s press conference that was noteworthy. Now on to Zimmer’s.

Zimmer had some ideas on how he might utilize Hughes once he gets up to speed in his defense.

I’m sure a question on some of your minds is what does the pick of Mike Hughes mean for the future of Terence Newman with the Vikings. Well, Zimmer had an answer for that. Well, he did, but I’m not sure you’re going to get much more out of it than we did.

Zimmer’s press conference was pretty brief so there wasn’t a whole lot in it, and it seemed like most of the guys in the PC had already asked the questions they wanted answered of Rick Spielman.

I’m sure Ted will have more on these press conferences sometime soon. Until then, enjoy the remainder of the draft, ladies and gents. I may or may not be popping back in along the way with more articles/insights on the draft, so keep an eye out!