Sports Time Radio

The Miami Dolphins shook up the 1st round of the upcoming NFL draft by making not one, but two trades involving 1st round picks. Here’s what the Dolphins did yesterday.

Miami started the day with the #3 overall pick in the draft and believe it or not there where quite a few experts who thought that the Dolphins should use that pick to take a quarterback. Now remember these are also the same people who thought that the Dolphins needed a quarterback in last years draft. In the end the Dolphins used the 5th pick in the 2020 draft to take Tua Tagovailoa: so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the Dolphins to take another young quarterback in this draft and luckily their front office was smart enough to not listen to the those “experts”.

The first trade the Dolphins made yesterday saw them send that #3 pick to the San Francisco 49ers for the 12th pick in the 1st round as well as a 1st and 3rd round pick in 2022 and a 1st round pick in 2023. Then the Dolphins took that 12th pick they had just acquired from San Francisco and sent it to the Philadelphia Eagles for the 6th pick in the draft. Now the Eagles also got the 123rd pick in this years draft and a 2022 1st rounder. Miami also received the 156th pick in this years draft.

So in the end the 49ers are now picking 3rd; the Dolphins will pick 6th and the Eagles will pick 12th in the first round of the upcoming draft.

After the trade was made the questions started on what the 49ers might do with that #3 pick. San Francisco announced that they didn’t have any plans to trade their current quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, but it’s assumed that the 49ers traded up to get one of the young quarterbacks in this draft. Now there have been plenty of reports about how the 49ers where ready to move on from Garoppolo; so it wouldn’t be a surprise if they selected a quarterback with that newly acquired #3 pick. It also wouldn’t be a bad thing to keep Garoppolo on their roster as that newly drafted quarterback learns the system and adjusts to the NFL game.

I’m not sure how many people remember this, but that’s how teams used to groom starting quarterbacks. They would draft a young quarterback and then he would normally sit behind the incumbent starter for a season or more and just watch and learn until the team felt he was ready to take over as the starter. Somewhere down the line things changed and young quarterbacks are rushed into starting roles in a lot of cases when they’re not ready to be an NFL starter.

In the end this deal may work out well for the 49ers; if they land the right quarterback in this draft, but they did give up quite a bit of draft capital to get into that 3rd spot.

With the move back to the 6th spot in the draft it’s clear that the Dolphins have settled on Tagovailoa as their starting quarterback and that they’ll try to build their team around him. With this pick Miami will have an opportunity to get Tagovailoa weapon on offense.

The Dolphins added wide receiver Will Fuller in free agency, but Fuller will miss the first couple games of the 2021 season as he serves out a suspension he received last season.

By moving back in the draft it not only allowed Miami to add more draft picks down the road, but at #6 they should still have their choice of the top receivers in this draft. Baring another team moving up in front of Miami in the draft they should have their choice of wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase, Jaylen Waddle or Heisman trophy winner DeVonta Smith. If the Dolphins don’t go with a wide receiver it’s possible they might take tight end Kyle Pitts who a lot of people think is the best overall receiver in this draft.

What was really interesting was that the Eagles decided to move back in the draft as they appear to be in sort of a rebuild mode. Obviously adding the extra 1st round pick will help them in this process and if they hit on that 123rd pick in this upcoming draft this trade will turn out well for them.

I’m sure the Eagles hope that moving back to the 12th pick won’t hurt them too much and that one of those receivers will be available when that 12th pick rolls around. Philadelphia has already made the decision that Jalen Hurts is their quarterback; so ow they need to find some receivers to put around him; so if I had to guess I’d say that’s where they’ll go with that 12th pick.

Now I’m sure you’ve already heard who won this trade and all of the things that come along with trades like this, but do we really know yet? We have absolutely no idea which team is going to take which player or how that player is going to work out in the NFL. We also don’t know if these teams are done dealing even though it looks like they are, but you never know.

The funniest thing about this trade is that the biggest winner out of all of this may be the New York Jets. The Jets currently hold the #2 pick in the draft and if they decide that Sam Darnold is their quarterback imagine what they could get for that pick if they traded it.

There are still a couple of teams in the market for a young quarterback and it looks like if they want one they’re going to have to move up in the draft to get one. You have to wonder if one of those teams would be willing to give up multiple 1st round draft picks to get what they’d hope is their franchise quarterback?

Now if the Jets decide to move on from Darnold they’d probably use that #2 pick to select their future quarterback. That means that Darnold would be available for one of those teams that is looking for a quarterback and he’d probably come a lot cheaper in a trade than that #2 overall pick would.

In all honesty I think that the Jets should hold onto Darnold and sell that #2 pick to the highest bidder, but since the Jets will be coming into this season with a new head coach and coaching staff it’s possible they might want their own young quarterback to work with.

It won’t take long to see how this all plays out as the NFL draft is only a little over a month away.

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