The Miami Dolphins’ roster should be considered generally stable ahead of tomorrow’s 2020 NFL Draft. The team has room to hold all of their NFL Draft selections on the roster, even if they manage to make picks with all 14 selections. But the team has made one last transaction ahead of Thursday night — the team announced on Tuesday evening that they had waived defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter with a non-football injury designation.
We have waived defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter with a non-football injury designation.
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) April 21, 2020
The loss of Ledbetter off the roster is certainly eased by the team’s additions of Emmanuel Ogbah and Shaq Lawson in free agency — both players are viable “hand in the dirt” defenders who play a stout brand of football against the run and offer powerful pass rushes to compliment more speedy defenders coming off the outside. Ledbetter, an undrafted free agent out of Georgia in 2019, played in one contest for the Dolphins this past season — logging 61 total snaps with the team in Miami’s Week 1 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
The writing for Ledbetter was unfortunately on the wall all season, as the rookie never got back into the action despite a carousel of defensive linemen being active and inactive on a week to week basis.
Could Ledbetter’s departure signify the Dolphins’ intent to add more talent to the defensive line in this year’s NFL Draft? Possibly. Between his departure and the earlier cut of DL Gerald Willis this month the Dolphins have certainly opened up some breathing room on the roster to accommodate for some fresh talent up front. The only question now is “how high could Miami draft defensive line talent”?
As is the case with most things in the NFL Draft, it’s wise to never say never. Miami may find a value that they absolutely love early on in this year’s draft. If that’s the case, Miami could be adding talent up front earlier than we might expect.