Draft’s No. 1 pick, which Dolphins want, can offer more nightmares than dreams come true
There is not one NFL scout or personnel man I know who believes someone other than Joe Burrow will be the No. 1 overall selection in this draft.
Some believe Chase Young remains the best prospect in the draft, but even they believe Burrow will be selected No. 1 overall because, well, he’s a quarterback. Burrow’s actually the most complete and most productive quarterback prospect of the 2020 draft class.
And you know what that says about Burrow?
Maybe he will be good in the NFL.
And maybe he won’t.
Nobody knows with any actual certainty. Because Burrow also comes with holes (average arm strength) and questions (one-year wonder?) that any team has to grapple with.
So this is where I tell you all the frustration that many (most?) Miami Dolphins fans experienced late last fall because their team was (here comes the unbelievable thing) winning was mostly a waste of time.
And the Dolphins’ planned attempt at trading with the Cincinnati Bengals to get Burrow might yield fruit. But even if successful, it wouldn’t guarantee the Dolphins would get the best NFL quarterback out of this draft.
Because maybe that will be Tua Tagovailoa.
Or Justin Herbert.
Or Jordan Love.
Or someone else in the entire rest of the field.
And I’m not being trite here. NFL people are saying this to me privately — from their homes, of course. Sure, they think Burrow’s going to be better than the other guys. But they also admit they don’t know.
And you know what the NFL’s current free agency period just did for these personnel people? It proved no one knows anything.
Because Cameron Newton is an unrestricted NFL free agent quarterback. And no one has signed him since he was released by the Carolina Panthers on March 24. That release, by the way, came after the Panthers tried unsuccessfully to trade Newton.
Newton was the No. 1 overall selection in the 2011 NFL Draft.
Also Jameis Winston is an unrestricted NFL free agent quarterback. No one has signed the 26-year-old since he was released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on March 22. That release came after Winston threw 30 interceptions in 2019 and the Bucs decided 42-year-old Tom Brady was an upgrade.
Winston was the No. 1 overall selection in the 2015 NFL Draft.
And Jadeveon Clowney is an unrestricted free agent. No, he’s not a quarterback. But he’s more proof that owning the first overall selection isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be.
The truth is the No. 1 overall selection is a big deal but rarely gets a team to its goal: A worst-to-best storybook tale.
The fact is history shows terrible teams that followed their terribleness with the first overall pick often failed to resolve that terribleness. And even when they did, those picks didn’t really get them to a Super Bowl win.
At least not yet.
Consider the No. 1 overall selections in the past 15 years:
2005: Quarterback Alex Smith. Didn’t win a championship in San Francisco. Went to Kansas City, where he didn’t win a championship and then was traded to Washington, where he suffered a terrible leg injury in 2018 and hasn’t played since.
2006: Defensive end Mario Williams. Didn’t win a championship with the Houston Texans. Didn’t win one with the Buffalo Bills, who grew weary of him and cut him. Didn’t win one with the Dolphins in 2016, his only season on the team and his final season in the NFL.
2007: Quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Didn’t win a championship with the the Oakland Raiders, although he might have won some burger-eating contests. He lasted three seasons and never played again.
2008: Offensive tackle Jake Long. He won a Super Bowl! No he didn’t. He played five seasons for the Dolphins, the last two battling injuries. He went to the Rams where he battled injuries for two years and then he bounced around another couple of years as a reserve.
2009: Quarterback Matthew Stafford. He has not won a championship with the Detroit Lions and despite every gift known to the quarterback position — strong arm, accuracy, size, work ethic, makeup, good mobility — he has not delivered and the Lions have had three different coaches with Stafford at quarterback.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
2010: Quarterback Sam Bradford. He should be a cautionary tale for Dolphins fans who want the team to draft Tua Tagovailoa. Because Bradford was great at Oklahoma. He won the Heisman Trophy. But he was often injured. And the St. Louis Rams drafted him No. 1 overall and, that’s right, he was often injured.
Bradford was injured in three of his five seasons with the Rams. He was out of the league after 2018, at the age of 31.
2011: Newton. He was not a bust. He helped the Panthers get to the Super Bowl but lost it. And I’m sure Dolphins fans would donate body parts if their next quarterback gets similar results. But, with respect, not winning the Super Bowl is not the stated goal.
2012: Quarterback Andrew Luck. This guy is the best player of the lot and his story is the scariest. Because despite his amazing gifts and ability to lift an entire franchise on his shoulders, Luck was unable to get the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl. And he lasted six seasons, of which he played five, and poof, he was done. Gone, like a vapor.
So even when your team hits a home run, it might not actually be a home run.
2013: Offensive tackle Eric Fisher. The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t blow it here. But they didn’t exactly get it right, either. Fisher is 29 years old and will be the proud owner of a Super Bowl ring because the Chiefs won it all this past season — in which Fisher played only eight games because of injury.
2014: Clowney. He has so much potential to be great. He’s not great.
2015: Winston. It’s hard to envision a scenario in which he is signed to be some team’s starter this season.
2016: Quarterback Jared Goff. Understandably awful as a rookie then he took off his second and third seasons, helping the Rams to the Super Bowl in the 2018 season. But last year, he was a disappointment, and the Rams didn’t even make the playoffs. Now that team’s window seems to be closing.
2017: Edge rusher Myles Garrett. Outstanding talent. Not outstanding discipline. The story is incomplete here.
2018: Quarterback Baker Mayfield. He’s good from far but he’s also far from good. The story is incomplete here.
2019: Quarterback Kyler Murray. He was a rookie last season. We shall see what happens next.
The point here is having the No. 1 overall selection is not the fix-it that large swaths of the media portray it to be. It is a chance to get it right first. Nothing more.
And the Dolphins, as you have read in this space, will make an attempt at that opportunity at some point. It will could be in vain because the Cincinnati Bengals are said to highly value the No. 1 pick.
So go over that history of the past 15 years again and explain to me why the Dolphins should want that pick so badly?
Me? I think holding multiple first-round picks is better than owning the No. 1 overall pick most years. That includes this year.
This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
