How upheaval in college football affects the Miami Dolphins. Some players to keep in mind
It’s difficult enough projecting NFL careers for 20-year-olds even under normal conditions.
But with many of the projected high picks unlikely to play college football this season because of factors related to COVID-19, hitting on draft picks in 2021 has become even more challenging.
And that’s potentially problematic for the Miami Dolphins, who have as much early round draft capital as any team in the league for a second consecutive year. Besides possessing their own first- and second-round 2021 picks, the Dolphins also own Houston’s selections in those two rounds.
Already, three potential first-round choices at need positions for the Dolphins — Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons, Miami Hurricanes defensive end Greg Rousseau and Minnesota receiver Rashod Bateman — have announced plans to enter the NFL Draft and not play this season.
Additionally, at least a handful of other first-round prospects at Big Ten and Pacific-12 schools are considered unlikely to play college football this year — even if their conferences play in the spring (which is their hope) and even though the NFL, under terms of the collective bargaining agreement, can move the draft from late April to as late as June 2 if it chooses.
That means the Dolphins and other teams will be judging draft prospects off year-old tape.
“It’s going to be tricky; it’s going to be challenging,” NFL Network lead draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “When you have the entire season gone and you have to rely on old tape and trying to rely on your scouts to get recent information on these kids that you don’t have that access to, it’s going to be an incredibly challenging draft process for the personnel departments and scouts.”
And this will become a quintessential question for teams: Do you go with the safe choice — a productive player who has recent and multiple years of college tape — or gamble on a highly skilled player who didn’t play college football this season and played only one season previously?
The Dolphins, in recent years, have displayed a preference for players with a larger body of work. According to a source with direct knowledge, one reason they bypassed Wisconsin’s T.J. Watt — now a Pro Bowl linebacker with Pittsburgh — in the 2017 draft and instead opted for Charles Harris (who was a bust) was because Watt had only one full season as a standout starter, while Harris had 2 1/2 years of production on his resume.
“I go back to the baseball analogy,” Jeremiah said. “You draft those college baseball players, you feel like you know a little more about them. Maybe not as high of a ceiling but a higher floor. You draft some of these high school players, they’re 17-year-old kids and you don’t know what they’re going to be when they’re 23, 24.
“[With the 2021 NFL Draft], you are going to see some players that are three-year starters, played a lot of football, maybe limited upside. Some teams are going to be drawn to those players because they know more about them. Other teams are going to swing for the fences and maybe a guy only started six games in college but you feel like you have good intel on them and what they’ve been doing in the training process. It’s going to be fascinating to see how the teams approach this differently.”
ESPN college and NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky, the former NFL backup quarterback, put it this way: “This all comes down to traits vs. production. ... The one-year starter thing, there will be a little bit of, ‘Uh-oh, what do we do?’ There will be some challenges.”
Without 2020 tape for a lot of these players, what’s going to be more important than ever is relationships with college coaches. That’s an area where the Dolphins appear in good shape, because general manager Chris Grier, coach Brian Flores (who previously worked in the Patriots personnel department), assistant general manager Marvin Allen, senior personnel executive Reggie McKenzie (the former Raiders general manager) and co-director of player personnel Adam Engroff all have cultivated relationships with scores of key people in the college game.
“The NFL needs these college coaches more than ever,” ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. said, “because if there’s not a season, and you’re playing in the spring, or there’s limited tape, those assistant coaches know these players inside and out [and might know if] there was a player ready to emerge that could have been a really good player this year and a high-round pick.
“Are you going to trust those college coaches? These college coaches and NFL teams, there are a lot of good friendships there, and they will be relied on more than ever if there’s no college football season this year.”
ESPN’s Louis Riddick, who previously worked in NFL front offices for Washington and Philadelphia, said “scouts and GMs will have to be private eyes [because] you don’t have the same kind of access and data to draw off that we normally do.”
Former Miami Dolphins top football executive Mike Tannenbaum, now an ESPN analyst, said if he were running a team with multiple first-round picks next year — such as the Dolphins and Jets — he would make a fundamental change in the way he does business.
“If I have multiple first-round picks, I would be trading them for certainty,” he said. “As we all know, the NFL Draft is a very inexact science, and if there are significant conferences that may not play or delay until the spring, that inexact science becomes ever murkier. So if you need a pass rusher and you can give away a first-round pick to get let’s say [veteran pass rushers] Yannick Ngakoue of Jacksonville or Matthew Judon of Baltimore and they can play for you this year whereas you don’t even know what the draft looks like next year. And if you draft a player next year who doesn’t play this year, it may take him half the season to get up and rolling. If I was with a team, I would try to give away some of those picks next year for certainty this year.”
If the Big Ten and Pacific-12 are able to play in the spring, don’t count on many — if any — of their legitimate draft prospects playing, analysts say.
“If the season is postponed until the spring, unfortunately I think you’ll see almost every draft prospect [turn pro],” agent Drew Rosenhaus said his weekly Sunday segment on WSVN-Fox 7. “If college football is postponed to the spring, I would expect there to be a mass exodus of potential draft picks to opt out now and get ready for the draft in April.”
ESPN’s Todd McShay said: “I contend anyone with a first-round grade will definitely choose not to play if draft eligible, and I guess 100 players or so will say I am not going to play a six-, eight-game season in the spring and then go into the draft and then rookie training camp and then get ready for a 16 game NFL season. It’s too much for the body.”
Among players at need positions who either definitely won’t play this season or had their fall seasons postponed, here are some projected first-rounders that the Dolphins must get a handle on:
▪ Parsons: The Penn State linebacker had 109 tackles, including 14 for loss last season, and is “a future NFL star,” said McShay, who ranks him sixth on his big board.
▪ Rousseau: The UM star has only one full year body of work, with 15.5 sacks in 14 games. McShay raves about his “size and speed off the edge” and has him ninth.
▪ Batemon: Miami likely will be looking for a receiver and Batemon (60 catches for 1,219 yards and 11 touchdowns last season) and LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase are considered the best of those eligible for the 2021 draft. McShay has Batemon seventh overall, citing his “his precise route running, soft hands and physicality.”
▪ Oregon offensive tackle Penei Sewell: Even if the Pac-12 plays in the spring, it’s dubious if Sewell would. McShay has him third overall and said he would be ideal for Miami if the Dolphins pick high enough to get him — which seems unlikely — even after drafting Austin Jackson and Robert Hunt this year.
▪ Several Ohio State players projected by McShay for round one, including cornerback Shaun Wade, receiver Chris Olave (48-840, 12 TDs last season) and guard Wyatt Davis. Michigan receiver Nico Collins and Southern California defensive tackle Jay Tufele are among other projected first rounders whose teams won’t play this fall. None of those five have said whether they intend to skip a potential spring season and turn pro.
DEFENSIVE TACKLE SIGNED
The Dolphins signed former FAU defensive tackle Brandin Bryant, whose NFL career includes four games and three tackles, all for Cleveland last year.
Miami Herald sportswriter Adam Beasley contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
