The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

With the 111th pick we just took Guard Solomon Kindley from Georgia. Kid is a mauler but struggles in areas. Once you get past the 2nd round, everyone has their issues. He probably won't ever make a Pro Bowl but he can be a decent starter or good depth. We're clearly not messing around with the O-Line this year, signing and drafting tons of players to compete and be depth. Give them a year to gel and see if they can all start in 2021 for Tua.

Kid also seems to have good character makeup and aside from our 2nd rounder, it looks like a running theme for Flores. The Patriot Way, buy in or get out.

I am definitely ok with that.  MIA focked around too many years of letting guys go & do their own thing. I'm glad a hammer (Flores) is there now to nail these guys in place, like you said "get in or get out"

As a confessed draft nerd, I'm pretty happy with Day 3 so far.  Davis is going to be a short yardage run stuffer at DT.  Not a 3 down player at all, but the Fins gave up a ton of yardage on the ground last year and I think he will be a big help with that.

If Solomon Kindley can get rid of some of the lard, he has the potential to be a steal on the 3rd day.  He gets too far out over his toes because he is so fat.  He was able to get away with that at the college level, but NFL linemen will club him too the ground for that.  But if he can shed 30 pounds and not lose too much strength, he can be a REALLY good Guard.

Don't like the Brandon Jones pick.  I had him at either a 6th or 7th round talent.  With Hawkins still on the board, I would have taken him over Brandon Jones any day.  Hawkins has a nose for the ball and Brandon Jones isn't particularly good at coverage or at making tackles.  

Love love love the Strowbridge pick if they keep him on the outside as a rusher instead of trying to move him inside.  I had him as 3rd round talent, so to get him in the 5th round is great value.  He isn't going to be a 3 down player, but in this system where Flores rotates his defensive players, he will be a true asset as a rusher on passing downs.

Also like giving up a 5th rounder for Breida.  I will let Sunstroke give us more insight since he is a 49ers guy, but I liked the role player that Breida was last year in SF and I think he will be fine as a complimentary back for the Fins.

Even though he wasn't Day 3, I will also add that I really like Hunt in the 2nd round.  Normally small school guys scare me, but with a little coaching and keeping him at Guard (he doesn't have the length or arms to play Tackle at the NFL level), I think he can be a starter relatively quickly in his career. 

Overall, I am REALLY happy that they are addressing the OL so aggressively with this draft!  

We've made two trades today and are just loading up on the D-Line now. Bound to get some starters out of this. I've always said you will have a better team with 5 solid guys on the line than 1 superstar and 4 scrubs.

We also traded a 5th rounder to the Niners for one of their 786987 running backs. He only has one year left on his deal so it's a bit puzzling why we bothered but whatever.

Yeah, Weaver kind of lacks the physicality at DE, but this late in the draft you are kind of throwing darts.  If he was faster, I would kick him out to Outside Linebacker.  But we'll see. 

Overall, I am thrilled that the Fins are trying to build this team through the trenches which is the right way.  An outstanding offensive line makes the QB, RB and WR's all better because of the extra time they buy them and the holes they create and an outstanding Defensive Line makes the job of the secondary a LOT easier by giving the opposing QB a lot less time to wait for a receiver to get open. 

And then they go and waste a 6th round pick on a Long Snapper.  SMH

"Dolphins selected LSU LS Blake Ferguson with the No. 185 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Ferguson (6'3/229) was considered the best snapper of snaps that must travel a longer distance than typical snaps by those who evaluate such things. He will bring national championship experience to plays that require the ball be snapped farther back than usual. "

That's a great write up.

j

LOL, that reads like one of those memes of clunky translations from Japanese to English.   

At the NFL Combine, he ran a 5.07 in the 40-yard dash. His vertical jump was 31.0″ and his broad jump was 112.0″. He ran a 7.43 in the three-cone and 4.52 in the 20-yard shuttle.

    Analysts consider him one of the top long snappers in the country and a leader. They noted his repeatable placement on field goal snaps.

    Ferguson was twice named permanent team captain (2018, 2019), becoming the first long snapper in LSU history to receive the honor. He was a semifinalist for the Campbell Award as the nation’s top student-athlete in college football. He was also a two-time chair of the SEC’s Football Leadership Council and a member of the SEC Community Service Team in 2018 and 2019.


Basically, a very high character individual who was picked a round early because we had an abundance of picks and Grier values leadership. Plus, he's a good frigging long snapper. It's not glamorous but every team needs one. Better to take him now than hope he accepts our invite as an UDFA.

I suppose.  But there were still some quality players on the board.  If they had spent a 7th round on him, I wouldn't have minded it so much.  But I can name half a dozen other guys off the top of my head that I would have taken in positions of need at that spot. 

    Great pick IMO this is a needed position since John Denney's release. He could be a team player for ten years, whereas many 6th round picks never even play significantly in any game.

I LOVE high quality characters.  From what i can tell of Flores, these are things they are looking for in players. #FinsUp

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWe2J4TXQAEqnq4.jpg)

John Denney played all 16 games a year for 14 years for the Dolphins. I don't care what position we are talking about, but if you can replicate that in the 6th round, I'm thrilled with that pick.

Consensus seems to be that we did well on Day 1, had a lot of reaches on Day 2 but got great value on Day 3.

I'm not really against "reaches" as long as you don't waste a 2nd rounder on a guy who isn't scheduled to be drafted.......or a 1st rounder on Ted Ginn. If you want a player and have the chance to take him, then do so. Shouldn't matter too much if it was 20 picks early if you value him that high. We obviously put a huge emphasis on character and clogging up the lanes on both lines, so we shall see. Lots of these guys are deemed projects so Flores is going to have them learn on the job in 2020 and see where they fit for 2021.

OK...my thoughts on Miami's draft:

Round 1, Pick No. 5:  Tua Tagavailoa, QB, Alabama

No surprise...I've been flossing with Tua's jock since he was in High School, and was all for taking the risk for the possibility of greatness. If Tua stays healthy and develops as I think he will, he will be considered one of the top QBs in the game by year 3.

Round 1, Pick No. 18:  Austin Jackson, OT, USC

Tackles went fast in this draft, and while #18 was a little higher than I had my #5 OT, Miami definitely needed to land one in round one, so I'm good with it.

Round 1, Pick No. 30:  Noah Igbinoghene, CB, Auburn

Another pick that I liked, but thought it was a hair early, as I had Igbinoghene with a mid-late 2nd round grade. Sensing a theme at this point about "high character" players. Also...hard to argue genetics, and the Igbinoghene family is chock-full of phenomenal athletes.

Round 2, Pick No. 39:  Robert Hunt, G, Louisiana-Lafayette

I literally stood up and cheered when this pick crossed my screen. I love Hunt, and rated him as my #2 OG in this class. I expect that he'll be a mainstay on Miami's O-line for a very long time.

Round 2, Pick No. 56:  Raekwon Davis, DT, Alabama

Another excellent pick...big, beefy and plays with a mean streak...just how I like my D-linemen.

Round 3, Pick No. 70:  Brandon Jones, S, Texas

A bit of a head scratcher for me, as he went a full 2-3 rounds ahead of where I had him. There were at least 3-4 other safeties still on the board that I would've grabbed instead.

Round 4, Pick No. 111:  Solomon Kindley, G, Georgia

Another pick of a player that I mocked to Miami on many occasions. Since I never mocked Miami past round 3, I'll take Kindley's 4th round price tag as good value.

Round 5, Pick No. 154:  Jason Strowbridge, DE, North Carolina

Another quality D-linemen...you have to love how Miami is focusing on the lines.

Round 5, Pick No. 164:  Curtis Weaver, OLB, Boise State

Not a prototypical DE, but the guy was productive in college and has good speed. Hopefully he can be coached into a serviceable rotation guy for the line.

Round 6, Pick No. 185:  Blake Ferguson, LS, LSU

I can honestly say that, in all of the player-research and mock drafting I did this year, I never once even thought about long snappers. Ferguson appears to be good at long snapping, and Miami had a shit-ton of draft picks, so I guess throwing a 6th rounder at that position isn't that bad...

Round 7, Pick No. 246:  Malcolm Perry, WR, Navy

Decent dart throw on a utility guy who can play RB or WR, and has enough QB experience that he could be used on some gadget plays. Might not make roster, but if he does, he has the character (there's that word again) to stick.

Overall, I give Miami an A grade...and was very impressed. This is a team that is building a roster from the ground up, and they got a lot of good material for that construction out of this draft class.

Most of us are very happy we have the most effecient QB in FBS history as the face of the franchise.  I was so relieved when the name they called wasn't Herbert.  Hot take: Tua will be on the cover of Madden at some point.

Yeah, we needed a tackle and we tried to trade up with the 49ers for Wirfs, but Tampa only had to trade up one spot for him which sucks.  I do like Jackson as a consolation prize though.  He's talented and is a high character guy, sacrificing his football future to save his sister's life.  I'd like to think we'd all do that to save a family member, but he walked the walk.  Give him a year and I think he'll be a fine anchor for our team.

You're right, maybe a hair early to draft him, but his specialty is what our defense plays:  press man-to-man coverage.  It's a great insurance policy if Howard gets hurt again, or has more legal issues, and he excels in the slot.  Miami is a no fly zone.

Agreed completely.  Love the early and often olinemen drafted.

This is probably my favorite pick that isn't Tua.  He looks like a defensive end until you realize he's 6-7 311 lbs of pure muscle.  When he applies himself, he's unstoppable. That's the only thing I worry about with him, not playing hard every down.

I agree a little, but I do love he's another high character player.  He had a shoulder injury and couldn't participate in combine drills, so he asked every team in the league for film.  He watched 4 games for every team, 128 hours of footage, and created a binder dissecting every teams defense and presented it to the teams interviewing him at the combine.  I want a guy like that on my team, above and beyond.

Agreed, good value.  If he can lose a bit of weight and tighten up his technique a bit, look out.

I don't know much about him, but I do like spending picks on Dline.

A lot of draft grades gave us an A+ on this pick because he was so productive in college and we got him at fantastic value in the 5th round.

He will be the leader of our special teams unit, highly respected at LSU.


I was at the USF/Navy game in Annapolis, Maryland, which is a beautiful city with awesome crab cakes.  He made USF look silly, I'm glad we got him.  Hopefully he can make the roster and contribute...it'll be nice to have a modern day Slash on our roster.


We're on the same page bud, I also give them an A grade.  Phins up!

And I didn't even include the draft pick Miami traded for Matt Breida...and if Breida can stay healthy, that dude can run through people before they realize he's gone past them.

Stroke, you're a 49ers guy... Pulling up every play Breida had on Pro Football Reference, he was a beast in the first half, but pretty bad in the second. Any reason for this? 49ers just running him into the line killing clock or something?

Only issue I have with Breida is that he is only signed for 1 year. So, let's say he does a great job, now he wants to get paid and you should never pay top dollar for a running back.

I think we're the type of team to let him walk...It's not like he's going to be the next Zeke Elliot or anything.

I say this with all the humor I can muster but I swear my first thought was they needed a token white guy so they selected a long snapper.

We definitely would, but that just begs the question why we traded a 5th rounder for a RB in a year where we probably won't compete anyway? Should've just drafted a RB with that pick.

I like Breida, but he is the type of RB who really needs to get into a rhythm in the running game. With the platoon system that SF uses, Breida simply wasn't getting used enough. He also has had a tendency to get nicked up a bit, so a lot of the sporadic usage comes from Shanny trying to keep him healthy.

I think Breida is the perfect RB for Howard.  Howard wears them down by grinding, then we bring in Breida who busts the long runs when the defense is tired.  I think Breida is going to be a #2 RB, so we can probably keep him for cheap.

Overall I am pretty much in agreement for the positivity of this draft, if maybe not for the same reasons as others...

We are basically building from the ground up, everything was detonated at the beginning of last year, but somehow we got some positive traction from the ruins to get to 5 wins against most expectations (including mine).

This draft was basically day one of the new era - I am not expecting a huge bounce back to playoffs in 2020 . This maybe is the first step to building the foundations to something substantial from 2021 or 2022 onward, anything before that is a huge bonus to me.

I don't mind taking a flyer on Tua at QB without having to trade up. It could be like Marino falling into our lap all over again, a guy with all the skills but with question marks over his versatility that proved to be totally wrong. If it doesn't pan out that's fine, but if it does, we will be grinning ear to ear for the next decade. We have Fitz as a mentor, Rosen as a backup, if there is anytime to do something like this it is now.

I like that we are picking raw talent that fits Flores system and also good character guys that can grow together and lead the new recruits from the next drafts. I get the feeling this is all about sustained long term thinking, not quick fixes. That's the overall message I get from this draft.

Adding new beef to the offensive line is a good strategy - traditionally there are two ways that succeed, either you draft them until you get the right mix (ie. The Hogs of the 80s-early 90s Redskins) or you get in players cut from other teams with a point to prove (ie. the '72 Dolphins) until you you get a group that gels to form a complete unit that absolutely trusts each other and would kill for each other. For the last decade we have tried mixing and matching high draft picks with high priced free agents and it has failed badly, the OL has been our weak point for years - something had to change. We seem to be going the Patriots way - get plenty of talented bodies in there and go cheap until it's right, then pay them to stay.

Trading for Breida was an unexpected surprise, but I like it - there was a quick run on the top RBs after the first pick in the second round, and I got the feeling they pulled the trigger on the move after their choice was gone. He should be a good fit and complementary back in our system to Howard, and we have up to a year to decide if he fits our system to warrant an extension. To me it's a no lose situation, he was a great runner for the 49ers the start of last year and it could end up being a huge win.