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 one more game against either the New York Giants, Cincinnati Bengals or New England Patriots this season.
Miami finishing 4-12 with one win against either Giants, Bengals and Patriots would position the Dolphins somewhere between 5 and 7 in the pick order. Miami taking a win from the Giants would pull Miami to the point of no return against the Giants and the Bengals alike — ensuring that Miami wouldn’t sniff a top-2 selection and almost assuredly box them out of a top-3 pick as well given their tiebreaker disadvantage with another 3-win team in Washington.
Miami’s biggest competition the rest of the way for ordering purposes gets quite messy as the Arizona Cardinals and Detroit Lions both have 3 wins but sit behind the Dolphins currently thanks to a Week 1 tie. With another Dolphins win, both teams losing out would result in them leaping past the Dolphins in the draft order. Thankfully, two more contenders for draft positioning also play one another — Jacksonville and Atlanta go toe to toe in Week 16 and will ensure at least one of those faulty teams reached 5 wins.
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. Miami would own a tiebreaker with a 4-win Falcons team, so Dolphins fans must root for Jacksonville to defeat the Falcons in Week 16 if this pick were to sit 6th.
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