One surprising commonality among Dolphins 6 defensive picks. And personnel news
A six-pack of Dolphins notes on a Tuesday:
▪ Several commonalities bond the six defensive players drafted by the Dolphins last week. They all have relentless motors. The team repeatedly spoke of their football intelligence. Coach Jeff Hafley has a vision for how to maximize each of them.
And there’s something else: Not a single one of them was a top prospect — or anything close to it — coming out of high school. Two were no-star prospects. Four were three-star prospects. That has seemingly fueled all of them.
“I feel like I’ve been an underdog my entire life,” Iowa edge player Max Lllewellyn, Miami’s final pick in a 13-player draft haul, said Tuesday in a video chat with South Florida media.
“For other people not to see me the way I do, that makes me a little hungry. I’m going to show these people I’m a really good football player.”
Consider how these six were underestimated:
San Diego State cornerback Chris Johnson, selected 27th by Miami in a trade-up with the 49ers, was a three-star prospect, rated the 136th cornerback in his class by 247 Sports.
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, the 43rd pick and the nation’s tackle leader during the past two years, was another three-star prospect. 247 Sports said, at the time, that he wasn’t even one of the top 55 players in Texas in the 2021 class and wasn’t one of the top 400 prospects in the country.
Texas linebacker/edge player Trey Moore, selected 130th, was a no-star prospect, with his offers limited to Texas-San Antonio (which he attended for two years before transferring to Texas), Abilene Christian, Hawaii and North Texas.
Pittsburgh linebacker Kyle Louis, chosen 138th overall, was a three-star prospect that 247 Sports rated the No. 1,029 player in his recruiting class.
Texas safety Michael Taafee, chosen 158th, was another no-star prospect. And like his Texas teammate Moore, he didn’t have a single Power 4 offer coming out of high school. Rice offered him a scholarship, but he opted to walk on at Texas, where he became a third-team All-American. Brown and Colgate also offered.
And Llewellyn, selected 238th, was the No. 53 defensive end and No. 436 player in his class.
So that’s six defenders and not a single top-300 prep prospect among them, which means two things:
1). They were vastly underrated by the recruiting services.
2). They maximized their talents to become NFL draft picks.
3). To overcome any perceptions of physical limitations, they knew they had to have a relentless motor and develop elite film-watching skills, something several of the six discussed during media sessions the past two days.
“I don’t have elite size and speed,” Llewellyn said. “I am a guy who has to be super technical.
“I’m going to study the hell out of you on tape and find your weaknesses. I set guys up and I’m going to figure out and find a way to win.”
Assistant GM Kyle Smith, when answering a question about Moore, suggested that an important step of the Dolphins’ process is coach Jeff Hafley having a vision for the defensive players selected.
It’s smart for general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan to solicit Hafley’s feedback, because he will be calling the defense and has a keen eye on that side of the ball. (Defensive coordinator Sean Duggan will install the defense in the offseason so that Hafley can focus on coaching the entire team.)
Hafley put it this way: “You find a really good football player, and I mean smart guy, tough guy, a productive player that jumps out on tape, I think it’s our job as coaches to have a vision for him. Then I think it’s our job schematically to figure out how to make it work for him.”
The low high school rankings of the Dolphins defenders as prep prospects stands in contrast to several of their draft picks on offense. Dolphins first-round pick Kadyn Proctor was 247 Sports’ No. 1 tackle and No. 9 player nationally in his class.
Dolphins seventh-round pick DJ Moore was the No. 1 interior lineman and No. 23 overall prospect in his class. Fifth-round receiver Kevin Coleman was the No. 6 receiver and 54th-best prospect in his recruiting class.
▪ Here’s how Hafley assessed several of the defensive draft picks:
On Johnson: “He can take the ball away and he tackles and he’s aggressive, and I love his play style and he can play inside. This was one of my favorite guys in the draft.”
On Lllewellyn: “Has got a toughness to him that we liked. He’s a rugged player. He plays really hard.”
On Moore: “All the things that Trey can do, the amount of sacks that he’s had in his career, the ability to play linebacker, the ability to play off the edge. That’s really exciting for us.”
On Louis: “[You see] the versatility. I know he’s listed as a linebacker, but I think you’re going to see him move around and do some things back there as well.”
▪ We hear the Dolphins liked Notre Dame receiver Malachi Fields, but the Giants traded three picks to Cleveland to jump Miami and select him 74th overall, one spot before Miami picked Texas Tech receiver Caleb Douglas.
Douglas had seven drops last season, Fields none.
They have similar size: Fields is 6-4, Douglas 6-3.
Douglas had slightly better production last season (54 receptions, 15.7 per reception, 7 TDs). Fields, in a run-heavy Notre Dame offense, averaged a whopping 17.5 per catch but had only 36 receptions (and five TDs).
What’s the skill that separates Douglas?
“How I can stretch the field, how I can go out there and play in small spaces at my size,” he said.
▪ Ohio State tight end Will Kacmarek, drafted by Miami 87th overall, said: “I think I’m a dominant blocker at the point of attack, but I don’t think people give me enough credit for my [receiving] ability. I was used in an offense with tons of weapons so the opportunities were limited, but whenever I got the ball, I had sure hands, I caught it and I made the most of it.”
He said he thrives as a blocker largely because of his mentality and aggression:
That’s “90% of the game. I think you need to have that to impose your will on other players and wear them down throughout the game.”
Of Proctor, he said: “You pair us two together, I think we’re going to move some defensive line, and that’s going to be our identity.”
▪ Sullivan said fifth-round tight end Seydou Traore is a “very raw, athletic ball of clay, if you will. He can move. He’s an interesting athlete. He’s got twitch, he’s got speed. He’s got good hands. I think he’s a mismatch as a route runner, and he should only get better; he hasn’t been playing football real long.
“So that was what was intriguing to us, especially at that value [180th overall]. We felt like a player who’s ascending and whose best ball is in front of him and can be a problem for defenses in time, I have a lot of faith in the coaches who are going to coach him every day to continue to develop him as a pro. He was somebody that we had our eyes on for a while and he fell to us at the right value, so we took a shot.”
▪ In addition to 10 undrafted rookies who have agreed to contracts, the Dolphins also have invited numerous players to try out at their May 8 rookie minicamp.
Among them, according to their universities: FSU quarterback Thomas Castellanos (who will try out as a wide receiver for Miami), Louisiana defensive lineman Jordan Lawson (15 tackles for loss, 5 sacks last season), Nebraska defensive back Marcus Buford Jr. (three career interceptions), Virginia tight end Sage Ennis (23 catches, 214 yards and 5 TDs last season; played four years at Clemson and two at Virginia) and Clemson tackle/guard Walker Parks.
Castellanos, who was a quarterback at UCF, Boston College and FSU, has never played wide receiver in his life but took snaps as a receiver, at the request of NFL people, during the later stages of FSU’s Pro Day.
Here’s my Tuesday piece with feedback and analysis on the Dolphins’ three draft picks from the University of Texas.
This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 1:30 PM.
