The Miami Dolphins’ rookie class of 2020 held a major role in Miami’s 2020 campaign, logging a total of 4,906 snaps throughout the course of the team’s 10-win season. If that can’t get you excited for the future, we’re not sure what will — especially when considering the role for these players is only going to grow from here. But while Miami’s effort from their rookie class was mostly a “team effort”, we have seen the Dolphins receive some accolades for one of their rookie’s performance this season.
Dolphins DT Raekwon Davis selected to PFWA all-rookie team.
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) January 19, 2021
Somewhere, we’d like to envision Brian Flores celebrating in similar fashion as to his live reaction to Davis being on the board when Miami picked him at No. 56 overall in last year’s draft:
i'm just trying to be as happy as brian flores was when he drafted raekwon davis pic.twitter.com/xmVvJS8SLo
— bobby greasy (@soflojesus) May 18, 2020
None of the other Dolphins contributors were well positioned to earn honors on the list — Miami’s biggest contributions to the roster this year all took place in the trenches. And while Robert Hunt was quite impressive in the run game down the stretch, he simply wasn’t going to beat out Tristan Wirfs and Jedrick Wills given the caliber of play they put on display. Solomon Kindley was an under-appreciated part of Miami’s line and one could make the case he had a reasonable argument to claim one of the two guard spots from Seattle’s Damien Lewis or New England’s Michael Onwenu; especially when Onwenu played 622 snaps at right tackle as compared to just 299 at either guard spot this season.
Nevertheless, it is nice to see the Dolphins get some recognition, especially at the most thankless position on the defense: nose tackle. Davis was a stalwart against the run in the second half of 2020, his emergence helping to fortify a defensive group that ended up becoming one of the NFL’s most impressive turnarounds of last season.