RobertHorry
Scout Team
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
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I know who the Dolphins were coveting in the 1st round and why they slapped the table, so to speak. And it wasn't Cesar Ruiz. You'll probably not even be able to guess it. Surprised me, but it was straight out of the horse's mouth so it's not information I doubt. The Jordan Love trade, as far as I know, wasn't in reaction to anything. It was a thing they wanted to do for a specific reason or set of reasons.
I don't have information on whether they really were upset when J.K. Dobbins went. I do know that Raekwon Davis has always been on radar. Something certainly didn't go their way with respect to the running backs, because yes the phone calls about Leonard Fournette, Todd Gurley, and Matt Breida was indeed a pivot. But if Dobbins was really a big time target I have a tough time believing they grab Robert Hunt at #39. I think in all likelihood, things had already gone sideways at the RB position when the Dolphins made that #39 pick. And I have a pretty good feeling based on information who, and how. The Chiefs are good drafters. And they know how to keep their cards close to the vest.
I enjoyed the Malcolm Perry pick as well. An unexpected but pleasant surprise at a point when I thought frankly they'd essentially given up on the rest of the draft. They had just taken a long snapper. If that isn't a sign that you're closing up shop, I don't know what is. But they chose that last pick as an opportunity to stick a finger in Bill Belichick's eye.
The buzz is Curtis Weaver had some sort of sickness in the off season that caused him to put on a bunch of bad weight. Certainly you pop on a 2018 game of his like the BYU game and you see a player that is both leaner and livelier. So I'm rooting for the kid, hoping he had some unfortunate circumstances. His eyes and his redirect are his biggest weapons. His redirect is why he ran such good agility drills at the Combine. Pretty strong upper body, too.
Brian Flores referred to him as a pass rusher, and openly wondered if it would translate. That's correct. That's what Weaver is. I would liken him a little bit to a player Flores coached in New England just before he left for Miami, Keionta Davis out of UT-Chattanooga. I wonder if that's who Flores sees, and if that's the sort of role he feels like he could carve out for Weaver in this defense, if Weaver does well enough for it. I'm not saying that's all Curtis Weaver will ever be, but I think it's a pretty good analog.
I think Raekwon Davis is a brilliant selection for this defense. He's the big swinging dick, the 500 lbs gorilla, that will command the doubles and free guys like Christian Wilkins, Shaq Lawson, Emmanuel Ogbah, and Kyle Van Noy up to go stunting around and/or beating single blocks. When linemen go on the attack against Davis, he has as much ability to stay rooted as anyone I've seen. When he goes on the attack, he's either got four or six eyes on him at all times, or he's dishing out bruises, making the QB uncomfortable in a collapsing pocket, and keeping him on an egg timer. My favorite is when Bama would occasionally bring Davis out to end and have him get downhill against a tackle in single blocking. It looked like trying to keep an avalanche in place. He gets off blocks. He can dominate passing lanes with his length and ability to get push to the inside. And what surprises is his speed when he has to get lateral and keep the ball carrier from turning the corner.
I think Robert Hunt was the best guard prospect in the draft. He might be given the opportunity to prove that right tackle isn't his future, but I also feel that when push comes to shove, they'd rather put their trust in the veteran Jesse Davis at that spot by the time Week 1 rolls around (whenever it rolls around). And once that happens, and you stick Hunt at right guard for the season, his performance there will probably keep you from deciding to move him back out, and thus we'll be looking for some right tackles next off season.
Brandon Jones was the highest recruited safety prospect in the country back in 2016. To me there are two types to claim that sort of honor: the physically dynamic ones like Derwin James, or guys who are just Mr. Football doing everything super well. Jones is the latter. Certainly by the time you got to 2019, he could do pretty much everything they asked him to do on the field pretty well. He has good (not great) speed, could close on the ball and jar it loose to prevent the catch. He was disciplined, very smart, aggressive. He's always running at full speed out there. His angles were good. His strength is good, ability to play down hill from the box or on the line of scrimmage, be physical and get off blocks, blitz the quarterback, etc. He's even a good punt returner, which I think speaks to his overarching ability to do just about anything on a football field well.
But in the end he's 5'11" and 198 lbs with short arms, and that pops up a lot when you see him having to work twice as hard as some others to break up a deep ball, or make a challenging open field tackle. I think he's missed 29 tackles the last two years, something like that. You see some arm tackles where the runner almost broke loose of him.
The pick I really didn't like was Jason Strowbridge. I know this isn't going to seem a very apt contrast because they're different sizes, but he's the anti-Raekwon Davis. Offensive linemen do not have much of a tough time with Strowbridge. They're not walking out of the game black and blue, or feeling lucky to have kept him at bay for 60 minutes. He's a physical specimen, like Davis, only smaller and therefore more likely to play on the edges. But you can be that and still come off as a player that gives blockers a hard time. When Jason Strowbridge is combo blocked, he gets pushed off the screen. Literally. He's at his best when he can get his hand placement right, and use his hands the way he really wants to. But otherwise I keep watching the guy and uttering the cliche phrase, "Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane."
One of the themes I get out of this draft is taking some guys who had reasons they couldn't reach full potential in college, be it an injury here, an off season sickness, immaturity, donating bone marrow, a recent position switch, poor coaching, etc. You can take that one all the way to the top with Tua Tagovailoa, who wouldn't have been within reach of the Dolphins had he not crunched his hip. It's an interesting approach that reminds me a little bit of a period when the Bengals and Raiders always used to take the guys who were talented but fell because the league thought of them as problem children. Miami doesn't go that far, they generally go for choir boys as a matter of fact. But they were definitely looking at things almost from an equity analyst's standpoint, looking for mis-priced assets and market inefficiencies.
I heard from people close to the org that Clyde and Swift were their targets at 39, could be wrong though.
