Chris Grier, Mike Tannenbaum and Bill Parcells all wish they could erase one, repeating night from their Miami Dolphins years.<\/p>\n
This night.<\/p>\n
NFL draft night.<\/p>\n
They never got it right \u2014 or right enough, anyway. And so it didn\u2019t matter if these Dolphins bosses over the past couple of decades were smart leaders or hired good coaches. They never built the roster right. They always had a cart without enough horses.<\/p>\n
And here we go with the new regime of general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan, whose opening months have been marked by good ideas, aggressive moves and no red flags. That all matters, especially considering his toxic inheritance. But this is the day he needs to win if the Dolphins ever are to succeed.<\/p>\n
You might recognize the layout of this day, too. The chess pieces are in familiar places \u2014 or checker pieces, depending what plays out.<\/p>\n
They say history doesn\u2019t repeat, but it rhymes, and every scarred Miami Dolphins fan should go down the first-round possibilities and check no player rhymes with Ig-bin-o-ghe-ne.<\/p>\n
Or Tua, for that matter.<\/p>\n
Because while the Dolphins didn\u2019t pass \u201cGo,\u201d or the Buffalo Bills in the past six years, they\u2019re right back at the starting line of the 2020 draft. A massive rebuild. A new regime. More draft picks in the top three rounds than any other team. And all this warm-and-fuzzy hope \u2014 or cautious hope, from the fans\u2019 view this time.<\/p>\n
Can this new regime succeed where the previous one didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n
The Dolphins under Grier had three first-rounders in 2020. They drafted quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, left tackle Austin Jackson and cornerback Noah Igbinoghene. The rebuild was never built. Only Jackson remains on the roster, and he\u2019s an injury-questioned right tackle on a one-year, show-me contract.<\/p>\n
Sullivan\u2019s new regime signed quarterback Malik Willis this offseason and has two first-round picks at No. 11 and No. 30.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the Dolphins had a league-high six picks in the top 70.<\/p>\n
Thursday they have a league-high seven picks in the top 94.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be a draft-and-develop team,\u2019\u2019 as Sullivan said recently.<\/p>\n
This is the night to bring that idea to life. Typically, the first pick demands a prediction, to say who the Dolphins should pick and why. But the Dolphins can pick almost anyone and it makes sense. They need everything. Two cornerbacks. Two edge rushers. Two receivers. Two offensive linemen. Can someone bring an ark?<\/p>\n
One common idea is to get Willis some help. But didn\u2019t the Dolphins just go overboard in trying to constantly cater to a quarterback at the expense of the larger roster?<\/p>\n
Besides, does helping Willis mean drafting an offensive tackle like Miami\u2019s Francis Mauigoa (my pick) or a receiver like Arizona State\u2019s Jordyn Tyson, if he\u2019s available? Maybe it means building a defense with Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr., or Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, if either fall to the Dolphins.<\/p>\n
Maybe Sullivan expands the draft, too. Maybe since he needs so much, he finds when it\u2019s his turn at 11 that several players are there and he trades down a few places and expand this draft \u2014 or as importantly, next year\u2019s draft. That\u2019s the one scouts say is richer.<\/p>\n
Or maybe he trades down at 30th if another team wants to trade up for Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson?<\/p>\n
This regime has offered hope. Sullivan has articulated a plan he put to work immediately \u2014 not after a full, wasted 2019 like last time. He hired a coach he worked with in Green Bay in Jeff Hafley, so they shouldn\u2019t have the differences Grier and Flores had in building. They then made the defining move of signing Willis, the quarterback the want to build with.<\/p>\n
But now comes the draft that\u2019s been the downfall of so many Dolphins years. Parcells had the great line about these kind of nights \u2014 \u201cThey don\u2019t sell insurance for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two first-round picks. Seven picks in the top 94. It\u2019s a repeat of the 2020 draft going in. The hope is it\u2019ll look different coming out. But Thursday night really puts this regime in motion \u2014 wherever it goes. Good or bad. Up or down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Grier, Mike Tannenbaum and Bill Parcells all wish they could erase one, repeating night from their Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114,123,1763,125,124,119,110],"class_list":["post-242915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}