Dolphins Go All-Defense On First Two Days Of Draft
The defense has received an injection of youth
The Miami Dolphins first two days of the draft produced all defensive selections. Everyone knew that the Dolphins needed to infuse their defense with young talent… and that’s exactly what they did with their first three draft picks: DE Charles Harris, LB Raekwon McMillan, and CB Cordrea Tankersley.
I like the picks we made because they are all at positions of need. However, the unfortunate aspect is I don’t think any of them is going to be a day one starter, which is a bit sad since we need guys to step up pronto. Even though these three players are probably not going to start the first game that doesn’t mean they’re not going to get a lot of snaps throughout the season.
The Dolphins already have Wake and Branch as their starting DE’s and have Hayes as well. However, Harris will likely get his fair share of snaps.
This was a pick where the Dolphins drafted a player they thought was the best player available on their board, and a player that can be groomed to take over once Wake and Hayes playing days are over–which will be sooner than later. This will give Harris the chance to be Wake’s understudy and learn from one of the best in the game. Harris already has a deadly spin move in his pass-rushing repertoire, but he needs serious improvement on his run defense. I see the Dolphins starting by giving Harris some obvious passing-down snaps and then go from there.
Defense needed a lot of help and it got it
In the 2nd round, the Dolphins decided to go with a linebacker in Ohio State’s McMillan. McMillan led the Buckeyes in tackles two years in a row, which has produced a long line of quality linebackers over the years. I thought this was another high-quality pick. Miami selected a player at a position of need and a player that management felt was the best player on their board. Alonso and Timmons will be two of our starting linebackers, and Misi is penciled in as the other. However Misi has a long history of injuries and is still recovering from a prior neck injury, so even if he starts off training camp as the third starting linebacker, McMillian should be right on his heels. Most NFL football fans and best pay per head reviews are saying that even if McMillian does not start right away, he should be a starter by the middle or end of the season.
For the Dolphins third-round pick they decided to by-pass the Defensive Tackle and Guard position and draft a cornerback instead. I would have preferred a DT or G instead. However, CB is a premium position in the NFL and you can never have enough good CB’s. So Miami decided to draft Clemson CB Tankersley. He started his junior and senior years at Clemson and was able to amass an impressive 9 interceptions and is extremely fast. He is an aggressive CB that is not afraid to get physical and has the potential to be a shutdown corner.
Only McMillan will help Miami with run defense
However, the biggest knock on him is that he lacks effort in run support, which he needs to immediately improve on at the NFL level. Lastly, because of his physical and aggressive style of covering receivers, he has a penchant for drawing flags, so this is something that is also going to need a lot of coaching up. The Dolphins have a lot of bodies at Corner, but this seems more of a move with an eye on the future, with Byron Maxwell’s cap hit is $10 million in 2018, but without having any dead money cap hit if Miami chooses not to keep him.
The Dolphins did what they said they were going to do by drafting defense, and even though these players may not be immediate starters, it’s expected that they will immediately bring depth to the defense. What are the rest of the Miami Dolphins News fans’ thoughts about our first three draft picks?
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