Last year, in the second round of the draft, the Dolphins’ draft room was awash in disagreement. Ross wanted his football men to pick LSU’s La’el Collins.Except Collins had dated a young woman who had gotten pregnant with a child that might or might not have been his. And Collins was no longer with the woman. And he didn’t want her to have the child.
And she was found murdered shortly before the draft.
And fearing Collins was somehow implicated, teams ran away from the idea of picking Collins in the first round, where his talent demanded he be picked.
Ross wanted him in the second round. He wanted him every round after that, including the seventh. The owner figured if Collins was indicted for murder — which he was not after he was proved not to be involved in the crime — the team simply wouldn’t have signed him.
But Joe Philbin was against the pick on the basis he didn’t want to select, you know, a possible murderer. And general manager Dennis Hickey stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his coach on the same principles.
Obviously Ross did not force his people to pick the player. But he would have loved them to. He would have loved to take that enormous risk.
The Dolphins are willing to do that a lot more now.
