Toughest decision facing Dolphins, and how 2 reasonable people can see it differently
March 30, 2020 04:56 PM, Updated March 30, 2020 05:28 PM
Boise State safety Kekoa Nawahine knows Oregon is a different team when QB Justin Herbert is playing
Boise State sophomore Kekoa Nawahine discusses playing Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl, the Broncos' rivalry with the Ducks and more. By Dave Southorn
Chris Simms and Dan Orlovsky both were backup quarterbacks in the NFL. Both have forged successful television careers, Simms with NBC and Orlovsky with ESPN. Both offer thoughtful analysis, which is evident from their broadcast work and my conversations with each of them during Super Bowl week on Miami Beach.
And the fact they can watch the same quarterback — Justin Herbert — and come away with such vastly different opinions feeds into my belief that the Oregon quarterback represents the most difficult/important player evaluation Dolphins general manager Chris Grier will make in at least three years of running the team’s draft.
Here’s what Simms had to say about Herbert: “I think he’s got the best arm of any of these quarterbacks in this draft. A really gifted thrower [who] allows an offense to open up. Really good athlete, can throw with people around him and, to me, can make the most ‘wow’ throws out of anybody I’ve seen in this draft at this point…
“He might not be the quickest or the fastest to accelerate, but he’s the fastest quarterback out of all the guys when he opens up. He’s a special athlete that way. I think he has an incredibly high ceiling like Jordan Love. They can be superstar physical talents who I think can take over games. If you ask me who is the guy in this draft that maybe has a chance to be the next Patrick Mahomes, who in Year 3 of their career, you are going, ‘this guy is unbelievable,’ I think Herbert from what I’ve seen, has got superstar talent.”
And here’s what Orlovsky had to say about the same player: “I would be scared to death to draft Justin Herbert early. My analogy with houses is this. It’s almost like real estate. Justin Herbert is the really good-built home. Looks the part. Has got a bunch of upgrades. But you can’t sell it. For some reason, it’s just sitting on the market and you can’t sell it and you walk away from seeing the home every single time and you say, ‘Something is not right with that house. I don’t know exactly what it is.’”
And that perfectly captures how polarizing Herbert is as a prospect, how two reasonable people can watch him and come to such different conclusions.
What we know, as colleague Armando Salguero has reported, is the Dolphins very much like Herbert’s skill set and have been giving him strong consideration with the fifth pick. I can tell you that Herbert has some strong support internally, but that it’s not unanimous. NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said last week that sources within the scouting community told him that the Dolphins have high grades on Herbert and Tua Tagovailoa (as well as Joe Burrow, obviously).
We can also tell you that the fact the Dolphins cannot have any more in-person contact with Tagovailoa — and have their own doctors examine him again in person — helps Herbert’s chances of being a Dolphin. I wouldn’t be surprised, at this point, whichever way Miami goes with Tagovailoa and Herbert.
Any team drafting Herbert must feel comfortable that his physical gifts outweigh any concerns about his quiet leadership approach, stretches of head-scratching inaccuracy and erratic performance when facing a pass rush.
“There’s been enough to make you really apprehensive,” Tim Hasselbeck, another former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst, said of Herbert. “At his size, his ability to throw the football is really rare. People really fall in love with that. When you watch the Oregon film, it gets really boring watching him throw another screen at the line of scrimmage or throw a fake screen or rail route after it.
“I don’t want to say it’s gimmicky but you’re not seeing a lot of the same concepts you see often in the NFL, but then you also see two runs against Wisconsin where you are like, ‘Wow.’ A guy that can throw it like that that can make that type of run. There are tools to work with here.”
From a metric and analytic standpoint, we broke down all the positives and the concerns about Herbert in
this piece last month. It explained how among 129 qualifying FBS quarterbacks last season, Herbert ranked 124th in negatively graded play rate under pressure, per
Pro Football Focus.
But it also explained how, from a clean pocket, Herbert has the highest accurate pass rate in the 2020 draft class among throws of at least 20 yards.
So for every negative about Herbert, you can come up with a couple of positives.
And that makes Grier’s final decision on Herbert the most important and difficult one he will make in 2020 for this reason: His view on Herbert dictates everything Miami does at the top of this draft.
If Grier decides he’s a better prospect than Tagovailoa — with Tua’s durability factored in — he can probably sit tight and not try to trade up. If Grier has doubts, that would be a motivator to try to move up for Tagovailoa, if the Dolphins are willing to take a leap of faith with the durability issue.
Tagovailoa, by contrast, is an easy evaluation for a personnel man; everyone knows he’s really good. With Tagovailoa, the pressure is on the medical staff to evaluate the information and advise the personnel department about his chances of staying healthy long-term.
Grier is certainly not making this decision alone. Coach Brian Flores, Dan Marino, consultant David Lee and executives Reggie McKenzie, Marvin Allen and Adam Engroff — along with scouts — will all give opinions.
Ultimately, though, it rests with Grier. Does he gamble Miami’s future on a quarterback who is so physically gifted but makes some evaluators uncomfortable?
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. sums it all up this way about Herbert:
“I had said during the year that he’s a tough player to evaluate because you love his physical and athletic ability. You love the talent. But there was something missing. Was it lack of great instincts? Not throwing with great anticipation? Whatever it was, there was something missing.
“Late in the year, though, he got it together, had some strong games, ran the football really effectively in the Rose Bowl. Beat Utah with all that defensive talent even though he had seven straight incompletions late third quarter into the fourth in that game. Still a little inconsistent.
“Senior Bowl week helped him. Senior Bowl game helped him. Remember, he outperformed Jordan Love in Mobile. At the Combine, he threw the ball well. [Same with Pro Day]. It seems like he’s thrived once he got away from that Oregon offense through the process.”
The Chargers and Raiders already have arranged video calls with Herbert, according to NFL Network. The Dolphins had not as of Friday, but it wouldn’t be surprising if that changes. Either way, Miami already has spent time with him earlier this offseason.
Grier must ask himself these questions until he has answers he can live with: Is he so confident that Herbert will become a very good NFL quarterback that there’s no need to trade draft assets to move up for Tagovailoa? And if both are on the board at No. 5, is he so confident in Herbert that he would be a safer pick over a better prospect (Tua) with major durability concerns?
It’s only the next decade of Dolphins football that could be resting on Grier’s
