Grade Mike Hughes’ 1st Full Season as a Viking

Rather than "blame" or "fault", maybe it's better to think of it in terms of ability.  We're not sure whether he'll lack the ability to stay healthy for the rest of his career. But if he does fail to stay healthy, it probably won't be due to anything he does or doesn't do.  Some athletes just can't avoid injuries; blame doesn't enter into it.

And sometimes people aren't very good at their jobs.  It's not because they're not trying, they just lack skill or experience.  And sometimes they get better at their job, like we're hoping Hughes will.  Cornerback is a long learning curve, so he probably will get better, maybe a lot better.

In the mean time, my understanding was that we're looking at what he's done so far.  What we've seen on the field from him seems to match his PFF grade of about 60 both last year and this season, and he ranks in the high 80's out of 120+ CB's.  That's below average, but not awful, so I'd give Mike Hughes the player a C-, with a good chance he'll become a B or better player at some point.

Mike Hughes the draft pick, on the other hand, is sitting in D/D- territory.   He's given the team a little over a season's worth of part-time, below average play, albeit at a position where talent is hard to come by, but half of his four low-cost years are already burned up.

And I'm not going to hold it against either Mike Hughes the player OR Mike Hughes the pick, but it's pretty discouraging that the organization used three 1sts and a 2nd from 2013-18, yet found that CB was its weak spot on defense throughout most of 2019.