The most unique prospect in this year’s NFL draft is also one of its most polarizing, at least when it comes to the value of his position and whether he warrants a top-five pick.
Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton is regarded as one of the top talents in April’s draft and is one of a handful of players who could be in the mix for the Detroit Lions at No. 2.
No safety has been drafted in the top five since Eric Berry went fifth overall to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2010, and no safety has gone in the top two since the Cleveland Browns took Eric Turner second overall 31 years ago.
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Still, NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said in a conference call Friday that Hamilton is worth the No. 2 pick for the Lions if Michigan edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson is off the board.
Jeremiah ranks Hutchinson as his No. 1 prospect in the draft, three spots ahead of Hamilton. Offensive linemen Ikem Ekwonu of North Carolina State and Evan Neal of Alabama are his Nos. 2-3.
The Lions are not expected to draft a lineman at No. 2 after taking Penei Sewell in the first round last year.
“If Hutchinson’s off the board and he’s gone, if he goes one, I would have no issues whatsoever with them taking Kyle Hamilton and saying this is a plug-and-play guy who’s going to give them something they desperately need, and that’s somebody that can make a play,” Jeremiah said. “In a different draft, where maybe you had some guys at a different level of grades, then you could say, ‘OK, well, I’ll lean towards the edge rusher, positional value, all that stuff.’ But I think Kyle Hamilton stacks up really well with everybody in this draft.”
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Hamilton, a second-team All-American last season, had eight interceptions and 24 pass breakups in 31 career games at Notre Dame.
He is a long, tall, rangy prospect who would fill a major need for the Lions, who could lose starting safeties Tracy Walker and Dean Marlowe in free agency.
The Lions also have a need at edge rusher, where Hutchinson and Oregon’s Kayvon Thibodeaux are projected top-10 picks and generally provide more positional value.
“To me there is a real debate going on around the league about just how high you take safeties,” Jeremiah said. “I’m a little more biased in favor of them. Calling the Charger games for the last four years, seeing every game that Derwin James has played there and the impact that position can make, and think back to my time (as a scout) with the Baltimore Ravens and seeing what Ed Reed can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the conventional wisdom on that, of how high you take a safety.”
No safeties have gone in the first round in the past two NFL drafts, and no safety has cracked the top 10 since Jamal Adams in 2017.
Jeremiah noted Friday how the Los Angeles Rams built their Super Bowl championship team by surrounding a handful of superstars with “home run picks they’ve had outside the first round (that have helped) really build the nucleus of that team.”
“I think teams have been really smart about kind of the positions they attack in those middle rounds and realizing that you look at wide receivers, you look at linebackers, you look at safeties,” Jeremiah said. “That’s again one of the lessons from the Rams, their ability to be able to do that is why they are where they are, as everyone knows.
“You can find tons of safeties. You can find starters there on Day 2 and Day 3. So that’s the Rams’ thing. I think that’s going to catch on around the league, too, is people are going to realize when you target the right positions outside Round 1, you can survive without a first-round pick.”
The Rams drafted five safeties, all in Rounds 2-7, from 2017-20, when they did not have a first-round pick.
Lions general manager Brad Holmes was the team’s director of college scouting for each of those drafts.
Jeremiah said an average of 5.5 safeties have gone in Rounds 2-3 in the past 10 years, and many of those players, including Budda Baker, Tyrann Mathieu, Jessie Bates and Marcus Williams, rank among the best in the NFL now.
Bates and Williams are scheduled to be free agents next month.
“It’s a good spot to find those guys,” Jeremiah said. “I think it’s just saying, ‘Hey, we got to get the big rocks in the jar first, which are your quarterbacks, your pass rushers, your offensive tackles, your corners, and then knowing you can go shopping for guards, safeties, running backs, tight ends, all that stuff in those middle rounds. And I think teams have really started to figure that out.”
The Lions bucked conventional wisdom by taking cornerback Jeff Okudah with the No. 3 overall pick in 2020. Okudah, the highest-drafted cornerback since 1997, has had an underwhelming career so far.
Hamilton presents similar positional risk, but Jeremiah said he’s worth the gamble in this year’s draft.
“I think this kid’s pretty unique,” Jeremiah said. “He’s so tall and long and rangy. The ability to make plays from the deep middle as well as to drop down and play down low and be a physical player. He can erase tight ends. The interception he had against Florida State’s as good as it gets, and I think from a makeup standpoint, I haven’t got all of the background information on him, but when you watch him cover punts as a gunner and see how hard he plays, I think this guy checks all those boxes.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.