Interested on your take on Miami's draft overall. Is it as good as fans seem to think? I know a lot of it has to do with player development and that's where the Dolphins now seem to have more ability with Adam Gase at the helm. Thanks for all your pre-draft information as well.
I still think of the 2012 draft as a benchmark because that draft it just seemed like pick after pick they kept taking players I really liked a lot. Ryan Tannehill, Jonathan Martin, Olivier Vernon, Michael Egnew, Lamar Miller, Kheeston Randall, Rishard Matthews. I thought all of that was good value, and the only picks I didn't like were Josh Kaddu and B.J. Cunningham. Tannehill, Vernon, Miller, and Rishard had been players in particular I had been talking about for quite a bit. So I was one happy camper.
Fast forward a year and as much as I loved the 2012 draft, I absolutely hated the 2013 draft. I didn't think they got good value trading up for Dion Jordan, even though the trade cost was cheap on a chart basis. I disliked Jamar Taylor, disliked Dallas Thomas, wasn't a big fan of Dion Sims, had no real opinion on Jelani Jenkins. Wasn't a fan of the kicker we got, either. The guys I kind of liked a little were Will Davis and Mike Gillislee and that's pretty much it. To head into that "I've got picks and money" off season and end up having thrown a bunch of dough at Mike Wallace (didn't approve), Brandon Gibson (didn't approve), replacing Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett with high-money contracts on Phil Wheeler (I somewhat liked the player but didn't approve of the price) and Dannell Ellerbe (didn't approve), then turning all those extra draft picks into basically Dion Jordan, Jamar Taylor, Dallas Thomas, and Dion Sims...man, it's hard to express how much I hated that off season. I had already been advocating to get rid of Jeff Ireland. People kept saying we should see what he does this off season first because he has lots of picks and lots of money so we should see. I didn't get that logic because if the guy was questionable then the last thing I wanted was for him to be the decision maker during an off season where you have lots of picks and lots of money. And boy did we get burned.
So with that in context, I was good with the 2014 draft. It was somewhere between inasmuch as I really liked Ja'Wuan James and had been talking about him for literally years, but at the same time I really felt the plan at the 1st and 2nd round picks should've been Brandin Cooks in R1 and Morgan Moses in R2, instead of Ja'Wuan James in R1 and Jarvis Landry in R2. I felt pretty strongly about that. And even that aside I looked at us trading down in the 2nd round TWICE and Allen Robinson coming of the board just before our pick only to end up with Jarvis Landry, as much as I love Landry and what he's given us, I continue to look at Brandin Cooks and Allen Robinson and wonder. I liked the Billy Turner pick, more's the pity. I liked Jordan Tripp, Matt Hazel, Terrence Fede. I just thought it was a solid, could've done better draft.
I felt like the 2015 draft was stronger. I wasn't as high on picking Devante Parker as everyone else, felt there were better uses of the resource. But I did recognize he was talented. I was a big fan in that draft of Melvin Gordon. Say what you like, but there it is. I also wasn't a huge fan of the Jordan Phillips pick for better or worse, nor the Jamil Douglas pick. I was pretty crazy about Ali Marpet, Tyler Lockett. But they REALLY started to intrigue me as they went down the board and picked up Bobby McCain, Jay Ajayi who was one of my favorites in the whole draft, and Tony Lippett who was also a big favorite of mine. I thought if things went sort of mixed at the top-end of that draft, the bottom-end would make up for it...and thus I thought, good draft.
I actually felt much the same about 2016. The top-end didn't excite me (except for Tunsil), but the bottom-end did. We'll see.
This year it's kind of the opposite. The top-end of this year's draft excites me.
I'm not sure Miami could've done much better than Charles Harris, who had long been one of my favorite players in the draft. I mean, if you can't have FUN watching his 2015 or late 2016 games, then I don't know what to tell you maybe football's just not for you. Incredible pass rusher. Deserves all those comparisons to guys like Brandon Graham and Jerry Hughes, if not Dwight Freeney.
The third round pick Cordrea Tankersley to me was EXCELLENT value. I'm not sure I really could've hoped for better value. All my favorite players kept going earlier than CBS and other media people had them because, wonder of wonders I like the player because he's super talented, the NFL is more than smart enough to see the same thing I do. I'll give you an example. Delano Hill is a guy that I've been constantly raving about as a safety possibility for Miami, the spitting image of Isa Abdul-Quddus. He kept being available in the 5th, 6th, even 7th rounds according to all the mock draft stuff, Fanspeak, CBS board, etc. But he wasn't even an option for Miami at 97 overall because he was already gone! So when they got Cordrea Tankersley there, that was excellent value.
That said, I had some issues with the second round pick. Do I think Miami ultimately got a good player? Yes I think the chances are good there. In particular Raekwon's age stands out to me as something that bodes well for him. The guy has been playing and has shouldered responsibility well in advance of the ages he should have had that responsibility and production. Think about the fact that most of the 2016 game tapes we saw of him was him as a 19 year old, two-year captain. That's incredible. But much as I keep looking at guys like Brandin Cooks and Allen Robinson, the guy I'm going to be watching forever (right or wrong) is Obi Melifonwu. I thought he's just a aquaun selection at that pick, a pick you have to make. He's perhaps the most physically compelling safety in multiple decades, and oh by the way a borderline genius wonderlic, nice guy, plays with discipline and intelligence, and is good in pretty much every facet. I don't care what the needs are (and his position WAS a need), this is a player you grab if he falls that far. But in the end, it's a lot like Jordan Phillips...eventually we're gonna have a good player. Maybe we could've done better, maybe not.
When we got into Day 3, it kind of went downhill a little bit. I didn't rate Isaac Asiata, Davon Godchaux, or Isaiah Ford as good picks. There were guys that I liked better that it turns out have significant medical issues that I did not (could not) know about, so I give a break there.
And again this issue where the guys I loved generally just kept going too damned high! We get into the third day, and we still have available the likes of (no particular order) Grover Stewart, Carlos Watkins, Marlon Mack, Ryan Switzer, Samson Ebukam, Josh Reynolds, Dorian Johnson, Vince Biegel, Carl Lawson, Jeremy Sprinkle, Anthony Walker, Jordan Leggett, Jaleel Johnson, Desmond King, Corn Elder, Jake Butt, Damontae Kazee...but none of them quite fell to our first pick in the 5th round! So frustrating. So by the time Miami could pick, all those guys are off. Now I was a big fan of two OLs who ended up UDFAs (significant medical issues), but another one that was clean that I was a huge fan of was Chase Roullier of Wyoming. So we'll see how Asiata stacks against him.
I didn't think Godchaux was the right pick at DT, but actually they kind of quickly rectified that fact by taking a guy that I thought could and should have been the pick at the DT position (Vincent Taylor), especially with the likes of Grover Stewart off the board and Charles Walker having significant medical issues. So that set of two consecutive picks will be interesting to me, seeing which one sticks. I did NOT want them to take a gamble on Caleb Brantley. Not worth it.
Isaiah Ford a bit of a throwaway pick. Even the Dolphins acknowledged as much in a de facto way when they traded down in the 7th round, which is what you do when you basically have nobody left you really want to target. I had some guys that were looking to end up UDFAs that I'd have started prioritizing at that point, making them a draft pick so that I don't have to depend on them choosing us among several suitors. But again, several of those guys had significant medical issues I did not, could not know about. Of the guys who ended up going in the 7th round that were available when we took Isaiah Ford, I really liked CB Jack Tocho a lot.
Some of the UDFAs that really, really stood out to me?
RB LeShun Daniels, Iowa (New England)
WR Michael Clark, Marshall (Green Bay)
WR Amba Etta-Tawo, Syracuse (Jacksonville)
TE Ricky Seals-Jones, Texas A&M (Arizona)
OC Tyler Orlosky, West Virginia (Philadelphi)
OG Ben Braden, Michigan (New York Jets)
OT Aviante Collins, TCU (Minnesota)
OT Jonathan McLaughlin, Virginia Tech (Arizona)
OT Eric Smith, Virginia (Miami)
DT Jarron Jones, Notre Dame (New York Giants)
DT Josh Tupou, Colorado (Cincinnati)
DE Praise Martin-Oguike, Temple (Miami)
LB Richie Brown, Mississippi State (Tampa Bay)
LB Joseph Jones, Northwestern (Dallas)
Green Bay in general had a draft that had me constantly thinking that Ted Thompson and I shared a brain this time around. They follow that up by taking Michael Clark as a UDFA. Sheesh.
