Feedback on new Dolphins offensive lineman Isaiah Wilson and what Miami is getting
A 10-pack of notes on the Miami Dolphins’ newest offensive lineman, former Georgia and Tennessee Titans first-round pick Isaiah Wilson, with the trade pending a physical:
▪ If coach Brian Flores and new offensive line coach Lemuel Jeanpierre can transform Wilson into a reliable starting right tackle (or guard), it will be the organization’s best salvaging of a career since the team began making a habit out of giving second chances to young players who were seemingly at a crossroads.
Flores offered a second chance to both defensive lineman Robert Nkemdiche and running back Mark Walton and both squandered the opportunity, Nkemdiche because of uninspired play and Walton because of more legal problems.
Nkemdiche, the former first-rounder, played in only two games for the Dolphins in 2019 before being released. After the Bengals dropped Walton in the spring of 2019 after three offseason arrests, Miami signed him and he played well for a time before he was waived upon his arrest for allegedly attacking a woman who was five months pregnant with his child. Aggravated battery charges were later dropped.
Wilson’s situation mirrors Nkemdiche’s far more than Walton’s because there are no allegations of violence in Wilson’s past. That’s important to note.
But there were multiple maturity issues that motivated the Titans to cut ties just 11 months after selecting him 29th overall.
Among those: He was spotted partying in the days before Titans training camp, when he was ordered to be quarantining. And when police arrived at that off-campus Tennessee State party, Wilson reportedly was set to jump from a second-floor balcony to evade detection before deciding against it.
Three days before the regular-season opener, he was arrested for DUI, when he blew a 0.107 and 0.113 into a breathalyzer when he was pulled over. The BAC limit in Tennessee is .08.
Then he was suspended for breaking team rules in December and partied without a mask in South Florida on New Year’s Eve. What’s more, he tweeted last month that he was done playing for the Titans before deleting the tweet.
“He’s kind of lost,” said one NFL person who has spent time around him, noting that he’s not a bad person. “There are a lot of maturity issues. He needs direction and guidance.”
Perhaps Flores and Jeanpierre can provide that.
As NFL Network’s Peter Schrager noted, “Brian Flores and Isaiah Wilson are both graduates of Poly Prep High School in Brooklyn. Flores has known of Wilson for years. If anyone can get him back on track, it’s Flo.”
▪ The Titans simply gave up, after he played just three snaps as a rookie (all in victory formation) and had two stints on the NFL’s COVID-19 list.
Asked in January about Wilson’s future with the team, coach Mike Vrabel said: “I can’t comment on Isaiah. I wouldn’t even begin to be able to eloquently have an answer for you.”
Titans guard Roger Saffold, asked about Wilson by Titans media, said in January: “Let’s be real. Being a young athlete, there are a lot of challenges that you go through. You can either handle it or you don’t know how to handle it.
“We have a certain way of doing things here. We have a blue-collar mentality where you work. And everything you get, you earn. So sometimes the decisions that you make, you have to live with the consequences.”
His high school coach at New York’s Poly Prep, Kevin Fountaine, told The Tennessean in December that Wilson’s behavior is “surprising to see. It’s sad to see, too. I just hope he kind of wakes up a little. … It’s almost like he’s self-destructing on purpose.
“I just think sometimes when you play at these big programs at Georgia, you’re so structured. Your life is on a spreadsheet. … He’s got some freedom and has some money. He’s not making great decisions, but he was never, never an issue while he was here.”
▪ The Dolphins owe Wilson nearly $4 million in guaranteed money during the next three seasons; in 2023, they will be paying him $1.78 million of his $2.187 million salary even if Miami has moved on by then.
But here’s the good news: The cap hit and trade compensation required to acquire him are painless.
Wilson’s cap number for the Dolphins in 2021 will be $1.135 million. Conversely, the Titans will have a $4.48 million dead money cap hit on Wilson in 2021.
And the compensation needed to complete the deal — a 2021 Dolphins seventh-rounder sent to Tennessee for a 2022 seventh-rounder and Wilson — was minimal.
▪ Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, a former NFL scout, said: “If the Dolphins can get Isaiah Wilson straightened out, that would be a mauling right side with Robert Hunt kicked inside at guard. But sounds like that’s a big if.”
Unless the Dolphins add more competition, there will be a four-way battle for two spots on the right side of the line, among Hunt, Solomon Kindley, Jesse Davis and Wilson. Hunt, Davis and Wilson can play tackle or guard.
▪ Lance Bennett, Flores’ assistant, was offensive coordinator on Wilson’s high school team in Brooklyn when Wilson was there. So Kindley — Wilson’s former college teammate — won’t be the only especially familiar face to Wilson.
▪ As I mentioned in this piece last April, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier liked the 2019 Georgia offensive line, which ended up having three players drafted in the first four rounds: Andrew Thomas (who went fourth overall to the Giants), guard Kindley (Miami drafted him in the fourth round) and Thomas.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. said before last year’s draft that if Wilson had gone back for his senior season at Georgia, he likely would have been a top 15 pick in next month’s draft.
“At right tackle, he did a good job opposite Andrew Thomas,” Kiper said. “He’s a second-round possibility. A second-round-caliber player, at worst, early third.”
▪ NBC’s Peter King anticipated Wilson’s rise into the first round last year, noting “Wilson’s the kind of edgy, angry player who will fit well on the feisty Titans line.”
But Pro Football Focus, at the time of last year’s draft, called him one of the draft’s biggest reaches. PFF ranked him 111th on its predraft Big Board because of “questions about his agility, recovery ability and ability to operate in space, which is a real concern at tackle.”
PFF’s Mike Renner said last spring that “he’s 350 and he holds it well and he’s probably going to play at 350 in the NFL. But he had reps on tape where he just couldn’t react to inside moves. He didn’t even get his hands on guys. I worry about that when it comes to pass protection at the NFL level.”
Renner predicted he will end up at guard in the NFL.
Wilson, who is 6-7 and 350 pounds, allowed just nine total quarterback pressures in his final year playing right tackle at Georgia. As a run-blocker, he graded out as a 78.5 and a 76.2 in two seasons, which is solid but not exceptional.
▪ The impression of Wilson that emerges from his Titans tenure stands in contrast to what teammates said publicly about him at Georgia.
“I remember when [Wilson] came in as a freshman, had to lose weight, and he was working,” Detroit Lions and former Bulldogs running back D’Andre Swift told Georgia writers. “That’s probably one of the hardest-working people I’ve seen.”
A five-star prospect out of high school, Wilson didn’t play in his freshman season, but then improved his body and became Georgia’s starting right tackle as a redshirt freshman. He was named a freshman All-American.
“How he carries his weight, he’s a great athlete,” Swift said.
▪ Confidence is not an issue.
Wilson told reporters before the draft that “I was fairing well against first-round talent, and touted draft picks. Guys I know that have years on me. That’s when I decided that I think that I’m good enough.”
▪ Of all the players selected in the first round of last year’s draft, 12.5 percent now play for the Dolphins.
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 11:18 AM.
