Miami Dolphins Write-up
Oh boy this is gonna get spicy
Miami GM here, had a great time again during the official community mock this time. Thanks to my very active and criticizing War Room again, especially for some of the late round suggestions.
After already GMing the last community mock I didn’t want to do the exact same thing again and decided to use a different approach. Last time I tried everything to trade up for Tua, but this time I wanted to sit at #5 and take the QB that drops to us and rather focus on getting one of the Top 4 Offensive Tackles, which is probably our biggest need.
I first started to send out offers to the teams in the 8-12 pick range, and also did some due diligence on moving up to #3, which I would still do if the price would be very beneficial for us, but I didn’t get a really good deal for us so I was pretty much set on staying at 5. Right before the draft I had the following deals agreed on:
Here is where the fun begins. The Chargers jumped us and traded to #4 with the Giants for a third and a 21 3rd. We didn’t know that the deal between the Giants and the Chargers was so low as I did not really reach out to the NYG GM and he also did not ask for an offer from us, but we probably would have traded up if we only had to give up a third and a 2021 third. Anyways, I don’t share the hate boner that /r/miamidolphins or most of the draft community in general has for Justin Herbert. Even before the draft I was aware of the possibility that a team might jump us for Tua and was content with drafting Herbert at #5. I think Tua is clearly the better prospect, but Herbert has a lot of potential IMO and I would be ok with Grier deciding that he is the guy and picking him at 5 instead of trading up for Tua. I got a lot of criticism from my WR for this pick, who wanted to take Simmons or trade down, but for me it’s clear that the Dolphins have to find their QB of the future at #5 and not settle on someone like Love.
Here comes the blockbuster trade up everybody was expecting from us for #5. Like I said in my pre-draft strategy, I wanted to get one of the top 4 OTs by trading up, and when the Giants picked Thomas at #6 and the Panthers put #7 on the block, I decided to pull the trigger immediately. I offered them the same deal that we had with ARI and they agreed. Everybody in my WR had a different ranking for the OTs, but nearly everybody, including me, had Wills as OT1, so this was a no-brainer.
Before the draft I was planning to target either Ruiz or Delpit here, as I would have never expected McKinney to make it down this far. When he was sliding into the twenties, I tried to trade up to #22 and #23, but couldn’t get a deal in time, so I just stayed at #26 and decided to pray – and it worked out, and we got our S1 without needing to give up anything. McKinney will be a great addition to an already very strong Dolphins secondary, hopefully providing the versatility that Minkah was supposed to bring.
Even tho we already traded up in the first to select Wills our OLine is still not very solid and especially lacks depth, so we decided to get Niang here, who was highly rated by most of us in the WR. Niang should compete with Jesse Davis for the Tackle spot opposite of Wills and would be great depth even if he doesn’t start for us.
I was already debating with my WR to draft Dobbins at #56 cause of our glaring need at RB, but got outvoted in favor of an OT, which was also ok for me. I still wanted to get Dobbins because he was the only quality RB left, especially after CEH was picked at #59, so I decided to use our immense draft capital to secure our RB of the future and gave up two 5ths to trade up a few spots and select Dobbins. Dobbins fits our scheme extremely well and will form a nice RBBC together with Howard. I have him rated as my RB2 in terms of fit for the Dolphins, so this was a pretty easy pick for me.