Following a dominant season at the University of Michigan, Aidan Hutchinson is considered by just about everyone to be one of the top EDGE prospects in the 2022 NFL Draft.
In fact, though you never really know what is going to happen in NFL Draft until it actually happens, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Hutchinson will be one of the first players selected. Heck, I would not be surprised at all to see the Jacksonville Jaguars select him with the No. 1 overall pick.
On Monday, the great Peter King released his latest Football Morning in America column and he shared what Hutchinson DM'd ESPN Draft guru Mel Kiper following his sophomore season with the Wolverines.
“I don’t know why I did it,” Aidan Hutchinson said Saturday night after his NFL Scouting Combine workout, sitting in his room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, a few long spirals from Lucas Oil Stadium.
“I just DM’d Mel Kiper.”
Hutchinson was recalling a spring day in Ann Arbor in his sophomore year, May 2020. He was 19. He was full of himself, as many 19-year-olds are. He was all into his football life, coming off a nice sophomore season on the defensive line for the Wolverines.
So he went on Instagram. He found Mel Kiper’s account. He began tapping.
“I am going to be the number 1 DE on your Big Board, mark my words.”
He never got a response, this braggy kid from Michigan. He didn’t care. The message was sent.
“That was something I wanted to put out in the universe and I wanted to get it off my chest,” Hutchinson, a little weary from the combine crappola and workout that afternoon, told me. “It’s something that I believed so much in my head. I was motivated. I wanted to be number one on that list.”
Hutchinson is there, and not just on Kiper’s list. His performance at the combine put all eyes on him. And 52 days before the draft, the bullseye’s on him. Just the way he wants it to be.
“Now I gotta send a couple more direct messages to some other people,” Hutchinson said.
No, Aidan Hutchinson. Now they’ve got to DM you.
