The ‘Joe Burrow will not be a Dolphin’ clues continue to mount. Here’s the latest
Happy Monday Miami!
Ready for a cold blast of water with your breakfast?
Time to really pull back hard on any Joe Burrow-to-Miami hype.
We have been trying to warn you for a while now. All signs point to the Bengals keeping their top pick and selecting Burrow a week from Thursday.
Their coach, Zac Taylor, spoke last week about the advantages of selecting first in every round with the draft running remotely this year. (Plus he wanted nothing to do with a question about trade interest.)
But even if the Bengals were willing, would the Dolphins want to part with the bushel of picks needed to go from 5 to 1? We wrote recently about not just the picks, but the actual players it would probably cost the Dolphins to go up to 1.
And now there’s this from NBC Sports’ Peter King:
“I do hear that [Dolphins general manager Chris Grier] and coach Brian Flores are very much against trading the farm to move up to get Burrow — which some in the organization want to do. I doubt owner Stephen Ross will pull the owner card and force a mega-offer to try to move up to number one, but we’ll see.”
Since Grier and Flores haven’t spoken to reporters (at least publicly) since the NFL Scouting Combine, it’s hard to say definitively that King has heard the full story.
But his report does jibe with everything we have heard. We wrote in February that there was increasing evidence that Grier and Flores are more inclined to keep their top picks, considering their many needs and the draft’s top-end depth.
And that could go for both the first and third picks. A swap with the Lions at 3 would be far less cost prohibitive than one with the Bengals at 1. But we’re still skeptical such a trade will materialize.
Short of Burrow, there might not be a quarterback worth moving up for. The Dolphins’ injury concerns about Tua Tagovailoa are real. And Justin Herbert, despite a strong predraft season, has very real flaws.
So 10 days out of the draft, the safe bet is on the Dolphins standing pat at 5, and if a quarterback they love is available then, take him. (Or select the best player available and then trade up from 18 into the top 12 and take Utah State’s Jordan Love.)
And on our way out, here’s our (still fluid) list of the Dolphins’ potential quarterbacks of the future, from most to least likely:
Justin Herbert.
Jordan Love.
Tua Tagovailoa.
Joe Burrow.
Temper your expectations accordingly, Dolphins fans.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 8:49 AM.
