Add Kalen Ballage to the list of recent Miami Dolphins draftees who didn’t fill needs
The Miami Dolphins, like most NFL teams, want to build through the draft. They want to find players they deem scheme and culture fits and rear those youngins so that by the time they’re fully developed they form the nucleus of a winning team.
Sounds like a good plan.
But it hasn’t been quite working out that way. And this week continues to show that with abundant clarity.
Late Wednesday, a league source confirmed the Dolphins plan to release third-year running back Kalen Ballage. This comes two days after the team waived/injured rookie outside linebacker Curtis Weaver.
So two more recent draft picks are gone.
Ballage needed to go. He’s a 6-foot-2 and 225-pound chiseled physical specimen who looks like a prototypical bell cow running back. Except with the football in his hands he doesn’t play like a capable running back. He plays, well, kind of soft.
Thus Ballage’s 1.8 yards per carry average last season and his work with the reserves this training camp. The guy the Dolphins anointed their starting running back to start their 2019 training camp was clearly on the outs this camp. And soon he’ll be history in Miami.
So where does that leave the team?
The Dolphins will depend on Matt Breida and Jordan Howard as the team’s primary ball carriers to start the season.
But here’s the problem for the build-through-the-draft folks: Breida was acquired via trade from San Francisco and Howard was signed as an unrestricted free agent after stints with Chicago and Philadelphia.
So the Dolphins, wanting to draft their own running backs, needed to go shopping for somebody else’s to fill the need.
The eight-player strong 2018 draft class, which featured Ballage as a fourth-round selection, is now down to four players -- Mike Gesicki, Jerome Baker, Durham Smythe, and Jason Sanders -- still on Miami’s roster.
So two years after that draft and only 50 percent of the draft class remains. And first-round pick, Minkah Fitzpatrick, is not among them.
Take heart. The 2018 draft class is doing better than the 2017 class.
The seven-player strong ‘17 class that supposedly “fixed the defense” -- remember that one? -- has three holdovers still on the roster in Raekwon McMillan, Davon Godchaux and Isaiah Ford.
Charles Harris, Miami’s 2017 first-round pick, also is not on the team because he was traded in the offseason after never living up to expectations in Miami. Third-round pick Cordrea Tankersley is also gone, cut Aug. 11 after only contributing as a rookie.
The 2016 draft class -- Miami’s first run by general manager Chris Grier -- has two holdovers remaining. Those are cornerback Xavien Howard and receiver Jakeem Grant.
So what’s the bottom line?
From the four Chris Grier drafts prior to the 2020 draft, the Dolphins have ...
Only one of four first-round picks still on the roster.
Uneven returns on their second-round picks in that 2016 second-rounder Xavien Howard is good when he’s healthy, but McMillan, Gesicki and the acquisition of Josh Rosen (for a second- and fifth-rounder in 2019) have brought some good, and some not so good.
The third-rounders in those four drafts? Yikes.
Kenyan Drake, author of occasional brilliance, nonetheless never found a niche in Miami under two different coaching staffs. Receiver Leonte Carroo was a bust, Tankersley didn’t work out, Michael Deiter didn’t make it as a starting guard last year and is trying to find a spot at backup center this year.
The lone exclamation point among those question marks is Jerome Baker, who is solidly in the team’s plans and is vying for a starting role and significant playing time during this training camp.
The point is the guys who should be forming the core of this young Dolphins team, the signature early-round picks of four drafts from 2016-19, aren’t doing that.
The Dolphins had 13 picks in the first three rounds of the 2016-19 drafts. These are signature high picks.
Six of those high picks are no longer on the team. Three more (McMillan, Deiter and Rosen via that draft trade) are fighting for a role on the team. And only four -- Howard, Gesicki, Baker and Christian Wilkins -- are starting caliber players.
No wonder the Dolphins had to go shopping in free agency this offseason.
They needed pass rush help in part because draft pick Harris was a bust.
They needed running back help because draft picks Drake and Ballage didn’t thrive.
They needed to pay Ereck Flowers to play left guard because draft pick Deiter apparently couldn’t do it.
The Dolphins signed linebackers Elandon Roberts and Kamu Grugier-Hill because they couldn’t be totally sure about draft pick McMillan.
They had to make Byron Jones the second highest-paid cornerback in the NFL (on an annual average basis) because draft pick Tankersley never met expectations.
Missing on draft picks happens. Everyone does it.
But the whiffs come with consequences. They leave voids they were intended to fill. And often, the patch costs more than the original solution because the patch often comes in free agency.
We’re seeing that again as Kalen Ballage goes down in Dolphins history as a draft bust.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 1:07 AM.
