Why the Dolphins’ No. 11 pick is the most important selection of the last decade
There’s a mantra that Miami Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan likes to live by come draft time.
“‘Be careful about trying to hit the home run and make sure you just hit the double off the wall,’” Sullivan said Wednesday, quoting an unnamed figure from days with his Green Bay Packers. “In other words, I think you take everything into consideration, but what you can’t do is swing and miss.”
That will be extremely important as the Dolphins use their 11 picks — seven of which come in the first three rounds — in the upcoming NFL Draft to fill out the rough edges of the roster. Sure, the Dolphins can be viewed as trade-down candidates, as Sullivan stated Wednesday, yet it cannot be overlooked how critical that No. 11 selection will be to not only provide an immediate influx of talent but also hopefully be the linchpin of this new regime.
“Character is a huge piece of the pie,” said Sullivan who will be the first GM not named Chris Grier to make a selection since 2015. “You want guys that are wired right, guys that are chasing it, guys that want to be the best football players that they can be, good teammates, they want to win, they prioritize the right kind of things, and we’ll do that. That will be a big piece of the pie with that 11th pick and quite frankly, with all our picks, but obviously at 11, we’ve got to make sure that we’re bringing a good football player into the equation that is a right fit for this place.”
Admittedly, the Dolphins have a lot of roster holes. Safety. Wide receiver. Cornerback. Guard. Edge rusher. The list, unfortunately, is very long as the Dolphins shed bad contracts during the early portion of free agency in favor of cap-friendly, one-year deals.
That ultimately puts the onus on the incoming rookie class to contribute from Day 1, something that Sullivan especially expects from players selected in the first three rounds. A plethora of picks, however, will allow Sullivan and coach Jeff Hafley to reshape the team in their image.
“What I tried to bring to Green Bay was a play style on defense that we were going to play harder and more physical and more violent than everybody that we played,” Hafley said in late March. “That’s what I wanted to add to the Green Bay Packers, and I think for the most part, if you turned on our tape, we played pretty hard. I want our whole team here in Miami to play with that same mind-set. This isn’t just about me coaching the defense now, this is about the culture of every person that touches that field, that’s what I want it to look like.
The evaluation process, however, can differ among individuals. Of course, the film doesn’t lie — but that’s not the end all be all considering there’s also senior all-star games, the NFL Combine, Pro Days, top-30 visits, etc. That’s why scouts, coaches and front office personnel sometimes disagree on prospects.
“Any time they have a vision for a player, it gives me clarity, sometimes more so than others,” Sullivan said. “I appreciate their feedback, I appreciate their vision, and it’s important to me, but by the same token, I have a responsibility to do what I feel is best for the Miami Dolphins. I’m not going to ever go out of my way to shove a player down the throat of a coach that he doesn’t want, but there will be times when maybe we see things differently.”
Hafley gave some insight into what that disagreement process during a recent interview with “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.”
“Today we watched a guy and he asked me ‘What I thought about him?’” Hafley said. “I told him ‘I didn’t like him very much.’ But what I did say was ‘I’ll go back and watch more’ because that is important to me.”
Added Hafley: “I’m not going to be right on everything and that’s okay. Let’s just get it right — I don’t care who gets credit. I just want to win.”
There exists, however, certain character non-negotiables of which the aforementioned three groups must agree. Miami can seduce even the most focused players and if the Dolphins use a premium pick on somebody who’s easily enticed, he would be a poor fit for the city. This requires scouts’ relationships within the individual schools to be rock-solid.
“You cannot overstate the importance of developing relationships in the school, so that when you go into a particular school, you’re talking to not just one, not two, but oftentimes three, four, five different people who see this player in a different light, whether it’s academics, it’s medical, obviously the coaches, now you’re talking to people that deal with NIL, to see the kind of person that you’re investing in,” Sullivan said, later adding that although “young people make mistakes,” the key is “to look for patterns.
“Most of us that are smart enough to understand when I make a mistake, I’m going to learn from it, and I’m not going to go down that path again,” Sullivan continued. “The ones that scare you are the ones that keep making the same mistakes over and over again.”
As much as draft experts will tell you that they can forecast the Dolphins’ entire gameplay, the truth of the matter is that nobody truly knows. Sure, assumptions and educated guesses can be made but with the current shape of this roster and no prior drafts to learn, what Sullivan and Hafley ultimately value becomes a bit muddied. Still, if you take them at their word, one thing remains clear.
“We’re in this thing to draft good football players,” Sullivan said. “That’s what wins games, good football players. It’s great to have a lot of picks, but I’m not going to fall into that trap of trying to be smarter than the process and pass on good players to acquire picks. We’ve got to get good football players into the equation.”
