The last several months have largely consisted of working through scenarios for the Miami Dolphins — who might be available at a certain point in the NFL Draft, which player to pick if it came down to two primary options, so on and so forth. And while much attention has been given to the Dolphins’ seemingly endless combinations at their disposal, the other side of the coin absolutely needs to be discussed as well.
What if the 2020 NFL Draft goes off the rails in all the worst ways possible? What would that look like? How can the Dolphins respond? The Dolphins must be prepared for everything — including absolutely chaos.
Here’s the Dolphins’ absolutely worst case scenario for the 5th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Three quarterbacks off the board before Miami picks.
NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah reported that the Dolphins have “high” grades on three quarterbacks: LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Oregon’s Justin Herbert. The Dolphins, in this case, would be devastated to see all three go off the board before Miami picked. How could that happen?
What if Cincinnati stood firm at 1 and drafted Burrow, Washington drafted Tua Tagovailoa with the 2nd overall pick instead of Chase Young and the New York Giants were prompted to trade back by the Los Angeles Chargers at 6 to jump into the 4 spot and draft Herbert ahead of Miami? This isn’t a very likely scenario, but it would absolutely be the worst case scenario for the Dolphins. The end result of this playing out would be Miami likely looking to either trade back or taking the best available offensive tackle before looking to regroup later in the round and presumably pursuing Utah State quarterback Jordan Love.
But the Dolphins would need to exercise restraint and avoid the temptation of drafting Love at 5 — it would be a premature decision and an instinctive reach based on the run at the quarterback position. First and foremost the Dolphins need to draft good football players and panicking to draft the best available one after an unforeseen run before they come on the clock is the worst thing they could do.