Miami Dolphins: Fan’s choice 7-round 2020 mock draft goes heavy on offense
By Zach Cohen
The Miami Dolphins will own the 2020 NFL Draft but how will they go about doing so? This fan’s choice 7-round mock draft would do the trick.
If you haven’t been living under a rock, then you know that the Miami Dolphins are in a unique position in the 2020 NFL Draft. They have a whopping 14 picks, which ties a record set in 1997 — by themselves.
This year, their impressive haul of NFL Draft capital includes three first-round picks, which makes doing a Dolphins’ mock draft that much more fun. But with all those selections, there are so many different ways that the franchise could ultimately go.
So I simulated three different 7-round mock drafts and let the fine people of Twitter decide which was the best.
Doing something I've wanted to do for a while now.
— Zach Cohen (@ZachCohenFB) April 7, 2020
I'm letting YOU pick what I'll be writing about, specifically about the #Dolphins. I did 3 mock drafts on 3 different simulators, and you can vote on which you like best. I'll write an in-depth article about the winner pic.twitter.com/xcM8jCgMiK
And the winner is the one you will read today, courtesy of the PFN Mock Draft Simulator. The only restriction was that, in order to keep consistency across all three simulators, there were no trades. Obviously, Miami will make some moves during the draft, so I made sure to address potential trading spots, as well as other possibilities.
523. Pick Analysis. Tua Tagovailoa. player. Alabama. 5. Scouting Report. QB
The Dolphins will probably not stay at this selection. Like I said earlier, there were no trades in this exercise, so I had to hope a quarterback fell to five. And it doesn’t take a genius to know that the Dolphins are in the market for a quarterback.
The leader in that doghouse for months was Tua Tagovailoa, but recent developments have suggested that Justin Herbert could be the guy in Miami instead. Other rumors, like the Dolphins wanting to trade up for Joe Burrow, have popped up lately, but the signs still point to Tagovailoa or Herbert for now.
So why Tagovailoa over Herbert? My hunch is that the Dolphins were aware that Tagovailoa was heavily connected to them. Therefore, they orchestrated a massive collection of smokescreens to cover their tracks. Now, no one seems to know what Miami will do. Tagovailoa gets knocked for his injury history, even though he’s received a clean bill of health during the draft process.
The three-month CT scan for #Bama QB and coveted draft prospect Tua Tagovailoa was as positive as possible, sources say. The fracture has healed. The hip and its range of motion is good. It’ll likely be another month before he’s cleared for football activities, tho, as expected.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 10, 2020
As for other possibilities, the idea that the Bengals would give up the first pick seems more like media speculation to me, even if the Dolphins were to ship them a treasure chest of draft picks — which I doubt Miami would want to do anyway. Why not get your franchise quarterback and keep as many picks as possible?
That should be Miami’s top priority in this pivotal draft, though some draft-day movement is basically guaranteed.