Cote: Dolphins’ new GM earns trust on Proctor, draft but better be right | Opinion
There have been few NFL Drafts with a larger spotlight on Miami than the one newly minted. It would have to be have been held here on Calle Ocho to be more Miami.
Top down, it started at No. 1 with local kid Fernando Mendoza, the pride of the Miami’s Columbus High, becoming the first player of Cuban heritage ever to grand marshal pro football’s incoming talent parade. That’s hugely significant history for a culture and a people who are the city’s beating heart. Las Vegas has its quarterback now, but Mendoza will always be Miami’s.
The Miami Hurricanes were big in the draft, too, of course, seeing three players in the first round for the first time since 2006 with offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa 10th overall to the New York Giants, edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. 15th to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Tampa Bain now — and edge man Akheem Mesidor going 22nd to the Los Angeles Chargers. Nine Canes were drafted in all, reflective of a Mario Cristobal-led program renaissance that just reached the national-championship game.
Oh, yeah. And the Dolphins. They’re in a major rebuild with new leadership. They’re expected to be lousy this coming season. They ended up with 13 draft picks — most in the league. The pressure was on to hit big, and often, with almost as many holes to fill as there are positions on the field. All of these reasons made this one this biggest Fins draft in memory.
So how did they do?
The start was inauspicious. Well, no, the instant reaction to it made it seem that it was. I’ll admit I was a part of the parochial knee-jerk opinion in-the-moment that Miami should have selected available Miami Hurricane edge rusher Bain, and therefore anyone they chose instead would be an awful pick.
I was wrong. And I’m glad I’ve waited a couple of days, until the draft was over and the dust had settled, to write this.
Yes, Bain would have been a solid pick at a position of need and certainly a more popular pick with Dolfans. It would have been the smart, easy choice if new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and coach Jeff Hafley were prioritizing what would bring the most applause.
Instead they thought independently with Alabama tackle of Kadyn Proctor as the 12th overall pick, filing another position of need with a 6-7, 352-pound behemoth with 40 major-college starts of experience despite not even turning 21 until June. Proctor is a left tackle who will adapt well to the right side, where he could start opposite rising, promising young left tackle Patrick Paul to give Miami better bookend tackles than it’s had in many years.
The versatile Proctor also could start at right guard, where he is listed on the team’s first post-draft depth chart.
Either way, going with offensive line first was smart for a team that will be run-first with rising-star back De’Von Achane and a team with a new quarterback in Malik Willis.
I certainly thought O-line was smart for the top pick; it’s why in my own mock draft I had the Canes’ Mauigoa going to the Dolphins. (He was taken just before, or he might have.)
Miami targeted eight different positions with its 13 picks, four on each side of the ball, led by three wide receivers and two each of edge rushers, offensive lineman, linebackers and tight ends. They also drafted a cornerback and a safety.
Everything is guesswork at this point. Any team’s draft is hugely better judged after one year or even two. But fans and media can’t wait and so here we are. ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. graded the Fins draft a B, or above average. That seems fair, though it lends benefit of doubt on several picks and, of course, assumes Proctor will be can’t-miss good.
Kiper had Proctor going exactly 12th in his final mock draft, by the way. I had Proctor going 17th in mine. He was a consensus high to mid first-round caliber. The only knock is that he and the scale don’t always get along, but I suspect the Dolphin Diet will be prescribed and do its thing.
Point is, Proctor was and is a consensus first-round talent. Kiper says of Proctor: “While his tape is a little inconsistent, the traits are all there.” His size, the quickness for his size, and versatility are what the Dolphins loved. Miami did not shock the football world taking him 12th. They mostly only shocked fans who were clamoring for and assuming Bain should be the pick.
The Dolphins’ top pick drew an instant, collective, “Huh!?” in South Florida mostly because he wasn’t Bain. The Dolphins also could have had the draft’s best safety in Ohio State’s Caleb Downs, another position of need.
This has steered a lukewarm fan reaction to a Miami Herald poll that invited fans to grade the Dolphins choice of Proctor at 12th overall. When last I checked, it was 52 percent a D/Disappointing grade, 22% B/Good, 16% C/Fair, and 9% A/Excellent.
This is how Scouts Inc., a very respected independent agency that ranked 400 players entering the 2026 draft, judged how Dolphins picks fared against their rankings. The higher the plus (+) number here, the better the pick in terms of relative bargain. The bigger the minus (-) number, the worse the pick in terms of perceived reach:
+49 Kyle Louis, Pittsburgh LB (138th overall pick, ranked 89th)
+39 Kevin Coleman Jr., Missouri WR (177th overall pick, ranked 138th)
+17 Chris Bell, Louisville WR (94th overall pick, ranked 77th)
-3 Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech LB (43rd overall pick, ranked 46th)
-5 Kadyn Proctor, Alabama OT (12th overall pick, ranked 17th)
-12 Chris Johnson, San Diego State CB (27th overall pick, ranked 39th)
-16 Michael Taaffe, Texas S (158th overall pick, ranked 174th)
-20 Trey Moore, Texas EDGE (130th overall pick, ranked 150th)
-46 Max Lewellyn, Iowa EDGE (238th overall pick, ranked 284th)
-66 D.J. Campbell, Texas OG (200th overall pick, ranked 266th)
-68 Will Kacmarek, Ohio State TE (87th overall pick, ranked 155th)
-116 Caleb Douglas, Texas Tech WR (75th overall pick, ranked 191st)
-153 Seydou Traore, Mississippi State TE (180th overall pick, ranked 333rd)
By this measure Louis is the Dolphins’ best or at least best-value pick. Why? Listen to Kiper: “Louis will line up all over the place. A savvy defensive coordinator will have him as a box safety, an off-ball linebacker, at outside linebacker, in the slot and over the top. No matter where he aligns, Louis finds the football. With 4.53 speed, he gets from Point A to Point B fast. And he is a tackling machine. Over the past two seasons Louis had 183 tackles, 24.5 tackles for loss, 30 run stops, 10 sacks, six interceptions and two forced fumbles. That’s incredible production. A-plus instincts. A true baller.”
Coleman, second in plus-points, figures as a slot receiver and punt returner and is seen as explosive and with reliable hands, a yards-after-catch guy. The knock: Smallish at 5-10 and 179 pounds.
And I really like Miami’s third draftee for plus-points in Bell. He has first-round talent, making him a steal in the late third. The one caveat: He’s coming off a torn-ACL knee injury. Fully recovered, he starts, and maybe stars.
Scouts Inc. judged Traore as Miami’s biggest reach. He’s 6-4 and a sort of tight end/H-back, big-slot guy who is subpar as a blocker and was given a sixth-round upside..
Douglas is the Fins’ second-worst pick based by minus-points. As an example why: Kiper had 13 wide receivers available and rated higher when Miami selected Douglas.
The bottom line is that instant grades on drafts is folly. Mock drafts, glorified guesswork, are not to be taken as gospel. Neither are draft rankings, or the opinions of fans or of media. And neither should we assume that NFL general managers and other war-room kingpins are infallible.
We’re all waiting to see how any draft pans out. Kadyn Proctor and Rueben Bain Jr. might be perennial Pro Bowl stars, they might be huge disappointments, and they could land in that very wide range of in-between.
A quarter-century since Miami’s last playoff win, the longest drought in the NFL, is tangible evidence against the drafting skills of former longtime general manager Chris Grier and others happily now in this club’s past.
For now, all we know of Sullivan and Hafley is that they did a bunch of winning in Green Bay.
That’s enough for now to bestow benefit of doubt. To assume the new regime knows what it’s doing, and to wait for Kadyn Proctor and all the rest to prove them right or wrong.
What we all should agree on is that they would better be right.
