What to make of the Dolphins’ (reported) private workout with Duke QB Daniel Jones
Some news from ESPN Friday morning:
The Dolphins are one of at least four teams to recently meet with and work out Duke quarterback Daniel Jones in Durham, North Carolina.
The others: the Giants, Broncos and Chargers.
Plus, the report continued, Jones has a scheduled 30 visit with the Redskins.
The Dolphins have done their due diligence with all of the top quarterbacks, and Jones is the latest.
Chris Grier attended Ohio State’s pro day and watched Dwayne Haskins throw. A team contingent, including Matt Moore, was at Oklahoma’s pro day for Kyler Murray following a sit-down with the potential No. 1 draft pick at the Scouting Combine.
Plus Missouri’s Drew Lock, West Virginia’s Will Grier and Washington State’s Gardner Minshew II have all gotten face time with Dolphins decision-makers.
So is Jones — the 6-5, 221-pound economics major — a real option for the Dolphins at 13?
Hard to say. His arm strength has been criticized (Jones clapped back on that topic when we asked him about it at the Senior Bowl). But his intelligence and ball security could be appealing to new offensive coordinator Chad O’Shea, who told us this about what he wants in a quarterback during Super Bowl week:
“I think in the end, the decisions the quarterback makes are very important, but the accuracy has as much to do with the success of a quarterback as any other trait he would physically have.”
Jones’ numbers at Duke weren’t gaudy (he completed just 60 percent of his passes and had only two more touchdown passes in his career than Haskins had last year), but his interception percentage (2.3 percent) was nothing to sneeze at.
Still, the sense among smart football people is he would be a second-round pick in any other draft. Perhaps that’s where the Dolphins would consider taking him.
NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout in the league, ranks Jones the draft’s No. 34 prospect.
“Jones has outstanding size for the position (6-5, 221),” Jeremiah wrote. “He is always under control and throws from a firm platform. As a passer, he relies more on touch than power. He throws with anticipation underneath and puts plenty of loft on deep balls, dropping them in the bucket. He’s more accurate than his stats would suggest (career completion percentage of 59.9); Jones suffered from a lot of dropped passes at Duke. He’s very athletic on designed QB runs, but he lacks urgency to consistently escape when pressured. He has shown the ability to read the full field, but he was forced to hold the ball at times because his weapons failed to separate. He showed his toughness by playing through injuries this past fall. Overall, Jones lacks elite arm strength, but he has a nice blend of size, toughness and football smarts.”