What did the Chiefs get in CB Mike Hughes?
Former first-round pick could make an impact in Kansas City
The Kansas City Chiefs made a trade with the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday to help solidify their secondary, acquiring cornerback Mike Hughes and a 2022 seventh-round pick in exchange for their 2022 sixth-round selection.
The 2018 first-round pick has struggled to stay on the field in the first three years of his career, suffering an ACL tear midway through his rookie season and a litany of neck injuries in 2019 and 2020. The Vikings stocked their secondary in recent years, so playing time — especially with his injury history — was going to be difficult to come by in Minnesota. Chiefs general manager Brett Veach is always looking to catch and rehabilitate talent at this point in the offseason, so Hughes made a lot of sense with little risk in the assets spent.
Health is the major concern for Hughes, obviously, but what could he bring to the Chiefs when he’s on the field? I went to the tape to look at where Hughes succeeds, where he still needs development and how he could contribute to this 2021 Chiefs defense.
Zone Coverage
Hughes looks most comfortable in zone coverage thus far in the NFL. He has terrific zone eyes that can read route distributions with his eyes in the backfield and possesses excellent peripheral vision to detect routes entering or leaving his zone.
When watching his NFL games, Hughes repeatedly makes plays on the ball by reading the quarterback and peeling off his coverage to meet the receiver at the catch point. On the play above, he reroutes the boundary receiver, identifies the developing route concept, then transitions as the ball is thrown to lay a big hit and force a PBU.
Hughes also possesses the requisite click-and-close ability to drive on underneath routes from his zone drops as well. On this particular play, the Dallas Cowboys attempt to clear out the Vikings coverage players through a fast motion into a stack that has both receivers releasing vertically. This space should free up Ezekiel Elliot to release underneath the vertical routes and put him in space with plenty of room to run.
However, Hughes does well to pass off his receiver to the deep safety before transitioning back over the flat — all the while keeping Elliot in his peripheral vision. When Dak Prescott releases the ball to Elliot in the flat, Hughes shows off his excellent burst to drive underneath and make the secure tackle to limit yardage.
Man Coverage
For as well as Hughes plays in zone coverage, he struggles in his man coverage reps. Watching games from his three NFL seasons — as well as his collegiate tape — Hughes can struggle to read the receiver’s releases and adjust his footwork. He will bite on head-fakes and stutter releases and sometimes can’t frame aggressive vertical releases from press, allowing the receiver to get a free release.
This becomes even more of a problem for Hughes when he’s matched up in man without safety help over the top, as shown in the above play. Hughes bites on the stutter release, allowing Marquez Valdes-Scantling to blow by him on a go route at the line of scrimmage. Hughes does not possess elite deep speed, so he ends up having to play catch-up. He does hustle through the end of the play, bringing the receiver down near the endzone, but he gives up the big play nonetheless.
Another aspect of Hughes’ game that hasn’t progressed much since college is his route feel in man coverage. Savvy receivers often eat up chunk yardage on deep comebacks, forcing Hughes to open his hips to protect against a vertical route before snapping off the hitch to get easy yardage. This is largely because Hughes struggles to “feel the break” in the route, as shown in the play above.
It wasn’t only comebacks that found success against Hughes, either. He routinely struggled to stay in phase through various in- and out-breaking routes because he was either worried about getting beat deep or didn’t have a good idea of the routes that were developing.
He routinely gives up easy separation after the break to better NFL receivers — something you’d expect from a young player — but hasn’t improved in his three years in the league. There could be a number of reasons for that, including injuries, poor developmental structure in Minnesota or even Hughes himself. He’ll be in the hands of the best secondary coaches he’s worked with during his career when he arrives in Kansas City, so the question of development may get answered quickly.
Run Defense
One question that will not need answering is Hughes’ enthusiasm in run support. He will throw himself into the run fit without any questions asked, and he has done it routinely when playing in the slot for Minnesota. Hughes has a knack for angles and the burst to slip blocks to avoid getting taken out of the play. That was key for a Vikings front that asked their slot defenders to kick into the box with motion — something that Spagnuolo will ask as well.
Hughes is also a terrific tackler, despite his size. He brings down bigger ballcarriers securely outside of his frame and packs a punch when driving through his pads. That’s important for today’s nickel defenses, as the offense will try to take advantage of lighter personnel. Hughes isn’t going to have the pure stopping power or block deconstruction of a true linebacker but he is on the upper end of those criteria for slot defenders in the league.
Where does he fit?
The majority of Hughes’ NFL reps have come as a boundary cornerback. While he certainly has the physicality to play out there for a Spagnuolo defense, I think his best fit might be in the slot in Kansas City. His willingness to fit the run and ability to play top-down from the slot — especially in those slot-to-safety rotations — should fit right in with a lot of the current Chiefs’ defensive tendencies.
However, Hughes will have to make some strides in man coverage to gain the trust of this coaching staff in the nickel defense. While Spagnuolo plays some heavy zone schemes, he also leans on Cover 2-man, Cover 1 and Cover 0 looks often, meaning Hughes could be matched up with a slot receiver on a two-way-go. If he can’t make inroads to improvement in his man coverage, he may struggle to see the field due to the limitations he puts on the playcalling.
That said, Hughes is coming into a stable organization with an excellent cornerbacks coach in Sam Madison. Madison has done wonders with some limited assets in his time in Kansas City, and his ability to get L’Jarius Sneed on the field and ready in year one is a testament to his developmental ability. Minnesota has also seen their cornerback room struggle to find their potential, bringing up questions of development that could bode well for Hughes finding his way on this Chiefs defense.
The assets surrendered in the trade — and the quality of player in Hughes — make this a low-risk, high-reward move for Veach and company. If Madison can work his magic yet again and get the most out of Hughes quickly, I could see him getting some good playing time as a slot defender and just maybe a contract in Kansas City for 2022.
Fantastic work as always. This maybe a browser limitation on my part, or a twitter limitation, but if neither is the case, would it be possible to embed these to where we can play the video directly within the article instead of launching a twitter tab/window.