Camryn Bynum’s Versatility Makes Him Vital To Minnesota’s Defense

There was a gen­er­al feel­ing that Lewis Cine would instant­ly become the starter along­side Har­ri­son Smith after the Min­neso­ta Vikings took him in the first round. There­fore, they would be forc­ing Cam­ryn Bynum to take a back seat. How­ev­er, after a sol­id train­ing camp in which he earned the lion’s share of the first-team reps, it looks as though Bynum will join Smith as a start­ing safe­ty for the Vikings’ Week 1 game against the Green Bay Packers.

Bynum, a cor­ner­back in col­lege, had to become a safe­ty in the NFL because he did not have the top-end speed nec­es­sary for pro cor­ner. But what Bynum lacked in ath­leti­cism, he made up for with his intel­li­gence. In a post-draft inter­view, Bynum said the posi­tion switch was no sur­prise because vir­tu­al­ly every NFL team that inter­viewed him before the draft asked about his abil­i­ty and will­ing­ness to play safety.

“That’s some­thing I expect­ed,” he said

As a rook­ie, Bynum was not sup­posed to play much while he con­tin­ued to make his tran­si­tion from cor­ner­back to safe­ty. How­ev­er, when Har­ri­son Smith test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 just before the Week 9 game against the Bal­ti­more Ravens, Bynum had to step into the start­ing role on short notice.

Despite only record­ing nine defen­sive snaps in the NFL before his first start, he was able to fill the shoes of a six-time Pro Bowler. He made a div­ing inter­cep­tion, record­ed 11 tack­les, and allowed a 57.6 pass­er rat­ing when targeted.

Hel­lo, Cam Bynum pic.twitter.com/zb77LVU043

— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) Novem­ber 7, 2021

Bynum’s NFL debut was noth­ing short of impres­sive. He fol­lowed it up with anoth­er out­stand­ing per­for­mance, record­ing his first career sack and allow­ing a 39.6 pass­er rat­ing when tar­get­ed in a game against the Los Ange­les Charg­ers. How­ev­er, the Vikings made Bynum a spe­cial team­er when Har­ri­son Smith returned. He made an occa­sion­al appear­ance on defense, but he nev­er record­ed more than 10 defen­sive snaps in a game from Week 11 through 16.

After Xavier Woods signed with the Car­oli­na Pan­thers, Bynum is now slat­ed to be the Vikings’ Week 1 starter. But he’s still in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion. Cine is lurk­ing over his shoul­der, and one bad game or even one dev­as­tat­ing mis­take could be enough for the coach­ing staff to pull the plug on Bynum and hand the rook­ie the start­ing job.

If Bynum los­es the start­ing posi­tion dur­ing the sea­son, though, he will con­tin­ue to be a cru­cial part of the defense, not only because of the qual­i­ty depth that he pro­vides, but for his seem­ing­ly posi­tion­less versatility.

Bynum was a cor­ner in col­lege, and the Vikings do not have a lot of vet­er­an depth. They’re espe­cial­ly lack­ing at the cor­ner­back posi­tion, where only Chan­don Sul­li­van has expe­ri­ence. If Sul­li­van were to go down with an injury this sea­son, it would not be a stretch to say that Bynum would fill that role and Cine would move to safe­ty in his place.

Defen­sive ver­sa­til­i­ty and qual­i­ty of depth in the sec­ondary are cru­cial to win­ning games.

“Our coach­es love to work with these types of kids who not only were ath­let­ic enough that, if you got in a pinch, they could go out to cor­ner, but they’re ath­let­ic enough and smart enough to do every­thing at the safe­ty posi­tion that is required,” Rick Spiel­man, who draft­ed Bynum, said. “So that’s why we did move him dur­ing our draft meet­ings from cor­ner over to safe­ty and felt we got great val­ue there.”

The fact that the Vikings will now have three adept safeties on their ros­ter will also allow new defen­sive coor­di­na­tor Ed Donatell to get cre­ative with schemes and blitz packages.

“Don’t think about this trio of safeties like you’re play­ing Mad­den and only have two start­ing safe­ty spots to fill,” my col­league Nel­son Thie­len explained. “Instead, imag­ine what their ver­sa­til­i­ty could mean for Ed Donatell’s scheme.”

Ulti­mate­ly, whether he is start­ing or com­ing off the bench, Bynum will pro­vide tremen­dous val­ue to Minnesota’s defense this upcom­ing sea­son. He is a ver­sa­tile weapon who can play as a slot cor­ner, box safe­ty, or as deep free safe­ty. He will also be a qual­i­ty depth piece. If Har­ri­son Smith or Lewis Cine get injured, the Vikings’ coach­ing staff would feel com­fort­able insert­ing Bynum in their place.