How NFL groupthink caused a talented pass rusher to fall into Miami Dolphins’ lap
The movie “Draft Day” doesn’t much reflect NFL reality, but there were a few moments of truth.
One in particular: How groupthink can paralyze general managers and cost players some serious coin.
In the film, teams ran scared from the consensus No. 1 pick after the Browns took a linebacker instead first overall.
Thinking the Browns knew something they didn’t, four more teams passed on the quarterback in question before he finally came off the board.
Now imagine that same scenario happening in real life — except instead of a five-pick slide, it was a three-round slide.
That seems to be what happened to new Dolphins linebacker Curtis Weaver, the Mountain West’s all-time sacks leader who, sources tell the Herald, was a top-50 pick on some teams’ boards.
So how did the Dolphins land him with pick 164?
Once he slipped out of Round 2, teams started overthinking their grade on Weaver. Enough teams developed paralysis by analysis that Weaver remarkably tumbled all the way to Round 5.
Finally, the value was too good for the Dolphins to pass up, and they picked the Boise State outside linebacker. He could end up one of the draft’s steals, if his production from college translates to the NFL.
“Weaver is a good pass rusher, or showed that over the course of his college career,” Dolphins coach Brian Flores said. “Hopefully that translates. I think he has got to do a better job in a lot of areas, but so does [Jason] Strowbridge and so does every one of these rookies. They all have to improve, they all have a long way to go. There’s definitely some things that we really liked out of Weaver from a pass rush standpoint. Hopefully we continue to develop those as well as every other part of his game.”
Weaver on Twitter Monday alluded to his disappointment of how his draft weekend transpired, but also struck an optimistic tone for what’s to come.
He wrote: “Can’t thank the @MiamiDolphins enough for making my @NFLDraft dreams come true! We went through every emotion in matter of 72 hours. But we’re still blessed! At the end of the day, what I COULDN’T control is done, & what I CAN control is up next.”
Weaver is one of several talented edge defenders the Dolphins have added this offseason. The others: Kyle Van Noy, Shaq Lawson, Emmanuel Ogbah and defensive end Strowbridge. Plus the team brings back Vince Biegel and Andrew Van Ginkel from last year’s team.
Unless you’re a diehard MWC football fan, there’s a good chance you have not seen Weaver play. That’s OK. YouTube has his highlights, which are impressive:
This story was originally published April 27, 2020 at 12:34 PM.
