The Miami Dolphins are eagerly looking to upgrade the wide receiver position as one of the final touches to the team’s ambitious rebuilding effort. The work will never truly be completed — as some investments will fall short of expectations and the salary cap will force the team to make challenging decisions regarding personnel. But Year 3 of the Chris Grier/Brian Flores era in Miami should allow the Dolphins to secure a roster quite close to what they’d ideally like. That was, after all, part of the appeal of starting from scratch in 2019.
But the rigorous rebuild of the last two years has left Miami with much work to do at the position. With pressing needs in the trenches, wide receiver has been an afterthought for the Dolphins as of the last few years — be that by circumstance or design.
But now, thanks to a story from ESPN’s Mike Triplett, we know just how rare Miami’s wide receiver drought across the entire NFL is. The Dolphins are a member of an exclusive NFL Draft club: they’re one of three teams in the entire NFL to not draft a single wide receiver.
The Saints are 1 of only 3 teams who didn't draft a WR the last 2 years, along with Packers and Dolphins.
But this year, the Saints can’t afford to miss out on a class that might be even more loaded with talent than those exceptional 2019 and 2020 groups https://t.co/r010bo5wta
— Mike Triplett (@MikeTriplett) April 15, 2021
The other two teams, the Saints and the Packers, have been competing for championships over the last few seasons. Their reasons for ignoring wide receiver are more so a product of their quarterbacks and trying to keep a well-rounded roster to keep them in competitive standing.
But for the Dolphins, it is more indicative of just how far the Dolphins’ roster has had to come after the team tore things down in 2019. But now, with two full seasons behind that decision, the Dolphins are ready to come the other way. So while the Packers and Saints may well extend their streak to three seasons (and even that is questionable), the Dolphins are almost assuredly going to end theirs in two weeks — perhaps even with their first pick at No. overall.