The Miami Dolphins have done a lot of work to position themselves in such a way that when the 2020 NFL Draft rolls around, this team will not have to wait too long to get on the clock and make their first selection. By and large, the rebuilding efforts are off to a good start and Miami’s roster teardown has left the team without enough talent to string together wins.
But Brian Flores has done an excellent job keeping his team competitive week in and week out. Some would argue Flores has done too good of a job (there’s no such thing, but we digress). Because now? The Miami Dolphins sit at 3-10 and are set to square off against the teams currently picking first and second in the current 2020 NFL Draft order — meaning more wins may well be on the way. But what if there are none? What would that look like for the Dolphins draft hopes?
Here’s what Miami’s realistic pick range will look like if the team wins twice more against the New York Giants, Cincinnati Bengals or New England Patriots this season.
Miami finishing 5-11 with two wins against any combination of the Giants, Bengals and Patriots would position the Dolphins somewhere between 7 and 10 in the pick order.
Here’s the good news for the Dolphins — getting to 5 wins will put the team against a glass ceiling of sorts, as the Dolphins own significant tiebreakers against two other threats to their draft positioning in the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers. Both teams could lose out and Miami would still pick ahead of both courtesy of the strength of schedule credited to the NFC South teams. Why? Because the South division not only had to play the New Orleans Saints twice this year but they also had to play the NFC West — where the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks are both on pace to finish with 12+ wins.
There are still hurdles to clear and current AFC West foes in the Chargers and Broncos to fend off, but the Broncos face a cupcake in Detroit and both teams play the hit or miss Raiders once more as well.
The most likely scenario for Miami in a scenario in which the team wins once more would be to be picking 7th in the 2020 NFL Draft behind the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Detroit Lions, Arizona Cardinals and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Ironically, Miami winning 1 game the rest of the way provides an equally likely outcome as winning a second game given the remainder of the league schedules for the rest of the teams competing for positioning in the top-10.
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