Coach of Dolphins second-round pick says Miami getting potential All-Pro player in Hunt
In the wake of his team’s 56-14 loss to Alabama in an early season game in 2018, Louisiana offensive coordinator Rob Sale got a call from a veteran Crimson Tide assistant coach.
The coach had a question: “Who’s that right tackle you have?”
That would be new Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Robert Hunt, who left quite an impression that day, more than holding his own against an Alabama defense replete with NFL talent.
“We played Alabama in 2018 and Mississippi State the last two years and you look at those games, and Robert and [teammate and Pittsburgh Steelers rookie fourth-round pick Kevin Dotson] are choking out their players and knocking them back,” Sale said.
Sale wants to make one thing very clear:
“Robert Hunt would start at every SEC school. No doubt about it. He would start at Alabama and Georgia.”
Miami’s selection of Hunt with the 39th pick has drawn almost universal praise, and Sale isn’t surprised.
He coached him for two years and came away convinced he can be a standout NFL player at right guard or right tackle. The Dolphins intend to give him a look at both positions.
“I thought he would be equally good at both, and that’s what I told people from Day One,” Sale said. “I think his value in the National Football League is through the roof. He might play at tackle and might never play inside. But he also can be an All-Pro guard.”
Why?
“He’s a big, old athletic kid, has no stiffness,” Sale said. “And he has something that you can’t coach and teach: That’s effort, toughness, strength. And he can handle everything mentally. I’m not even sure he can’t play center; he grabbed the ball and snapped it every once in awhile.”
Hunt was also considered a clean prospect.
“He has no issues,” Sale said. “He’s not going to embarrass the Miami Dolphins organization a couple years down the road. He’s well-rounded, well-spoken, great human.”
Sale wasn’t surprised the Dolphins drafted him because the “Dolphins were here multiple times last season. I knew they were very interested.”
The Dolphins believe his combination of bulk and athleticism and his lateral movement skills will make him well-equipped to pass protect at the NFL level. And he earned high marks for his run blocking.
“I came into every game with a bully mentality, so I wanted to bully anybody that came in front of me,” Hunt said. “I try to strain and I try to finish people. I think I just play this game very hard. You don’t get in trouble for destroying people on the football field, so why not do it?”
Among players drafted in the first five rounds, the Dolphins had gone 22 consecutive picks since the last time they plucked a prospect who didn’t play at either a Power 5 school or Notre Dame.
That’s what makes Miami’s selection of Hunt in the second round and Boise State defensive end Curtis Weaver in the fifth round somewhat notable, because it’s a shift from their recent history of bypassing non-Power 5 players until the later stages of the draft.
When the Dolphins do select players from schools outside the biggest conferences, they have had mixed results, with Bobby McCain (Memphis), Jay Ajayi (Boise State), Walt Aikens (Liberty) and Charles Clay (Tulsa) among the positive picks and Will Davis (Utah State), Jordan Tripp (Montana) and Clyde Gates (Abilene Christian) among those that didn’t work out over the past decade.
Miami selected McCain and Ajayi in the fifth round in 2015, and those were Miami’s most recent first-five-round non-Power 5-or-Notre Dame picks before Hunt and Weaver.
NOTEWORTHY
▪ As the No. 5 overall pick, Dolphins rookie Tua Tagovailoa was always going to get a $19.6 million signing bonus as part of the NFL terms in place for rookie contracts. But per NFL Network, the Dolphins agreed to give him $11.5 million of that bonus before June, which they weren’t obligated to do.
▪ You can bet on almost anything in sports, and Foxbet.com is taking bets on who will be Miami’s starting quarterback for Week 1. Its current odds give Fitzpatrick a 75.8 percent chance of starting over Tagovailoa. For betting purposes, Fitzpatrick’s odds are minus-500, Tagovailoa plus-350 and Josh Rosen plus-2,200.
▪ Dolphins receiver Albert Wilson, who recently took a pay cut from $9.5 million to $3 million, told Anna Logan (of the CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach) that “I’m definitely a couple of steps ahead of where I was last offseason. I’m excited, I’m feeling good and my body feels great. I’m antsy to have everything open up so I can show what’s going on.”
Wilson finished last season strong (17 catches for 197 yards in the final three games) after working his way back from his 2018 hip injury and dealing with a hamstring injury early last season.
Here’s my Wednesday piece on how a potential drop in the salary cap would affect the Dolphins’ rebuild now and in 2021.
We’re in the process of profiling the Dolphins’ draft picks.
Here are my pieces on Curtis Weaver and Malcolm Perry and Adam Beasley’s piece on Tua.
And here’s my Wednesday piece on ESPN’s plans for a UM-FSU marathon this week.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 5:16 PM.
