What Trading back in the First will do for this Draft

Jimmy Bourbon

9 years ago

The Dolphins are thin at linebacker and the boys at the sportsbooks should be betting that they draft at least one linebacker in the upcoming draft.

The Dolphins are already at a disadvantage having traded away their 3rd round pick, and there are insiders telling me that they are extremely interested in trading back into the 3rd round. This would probably mean that the Dolphins are going to be extremely active in trading back in the first round. If they do trade back in the first round that would give them another 2nd or a new 3rd round pick. In that case, either of those two picks would be in the range of quite a few very good linebackers. One of those would include Clemson’s Inside Linebacker Stephone Anthony.

Anthony is 6’2” 243 pounds and ran the 40 in 4.56 seconds. He has been a very productive player for Clemson for the past 3 seasons. Last year he had 69 tackles, with 10.5 tackles for a loss, 2.5 sacks, 3 passes defended, 1 interception and 2 forced fumbles and in 2013 he had 131 tackles with 13.5 tackles for a loss, 4 sacks, 1 interception, and 5 passes defended. As the off-season has progressed Anthony has been climbing up the charts due to his excellent showing during the entire week of the Senior Bowl, and his better than expected 40 time and field drills at the combine. He needs to work a little bit on his coverage skills, but he appears to have the tools to develop into a quality 3 down starter.

Anthony is projected to be either a 2nd or 3rd round pick, which means that if Miami wants to select him they will either have to do it in the second round or trade back at some point to pick up an extra pick in one of those two rounds. This is a deep draft and Miami has multiple positions of need, which makes trading back a logical move.

There are not going to be a lot of linebackers selected in the first round, however just like the Guard position, the sweet spot for these two positions in the draft is in the 2nd and 3rd round, so Miami would be wise to start lining up teams that they could trade back with in the first round. I would love for Miami to trade back at least two times in the 1st or 2nd round so they can stockpile two or three 2nd round picks or 3rd round picks, and use those to select Guards, LB’s and WR’s. Most of the boys at the local sportsbook would say that Guard and Linebacker are two of the easier positions in terms of having a smooth transition to the NFL. What does the rest of the Miami Dolphins News and sports betting software fans think about the Dolphins about trading back and also selecting Anthony in the process?

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