Miami Dolphins draft fills all their needs (except one)

The Miami Dolphins used to seemingly be involved in a different draft each year than the rest of the NFL. They’d take Ted Ginn Jr. in the first round when he would likely have still been available in the third, only to declare that they had drafted the entire Ginn family. They’d pass on future hall of famed Ray Lewis to take John Avery, who went on to be the MVP of the XFL; they’d skip over Anquan Boldin to take some linebacker whose name no one can recall who had bad knees at the time; they once took Jamar Fletcher (who?) over Drew Brees and then later passed up an opportunity to sign Brees via free agency (he went on to win a little something called the Super Bowl with the Saints). But with Bill Parcells now running the franchise, the NFL Draft is now no longer one of the worst days of the year for Dolphins fans – even though this past weekend did involve the team drafting three players that most fans had likely never heard of.

Ask any educated Miami fan what the team’s biggest needs were heading into the draft, and after they instinctively twitched and shouted “wide receiver!” you could remind them that Brandon Marshall had just been acquired from the Denver Broncos, after which they’d ponder the question and calmly rattle off three weak positions: safety, outside linebacker, and nose tackle.

Two out of three ain’t bad. In the first round the team identified the defensive end they wanted, realized they could still get him several picks later, traded down, and got Jared Odrick near the end of the round. Turns out their master plan is to shift existing defensive end Randy Starks to nose tackle (or so team officials said yesterday), use Odrick in his place at end, and solved that problem – along with picking up a second round pick in the trade which would allow them to fill another hole. Then, as the draft went into day two, some fans declared their desire for the team to pick playmaker Sergio Kindle, but Parcells and company decided that Kindle’s four knee surgeries was one too many for their comfort level, so they went with Koa Misi instead. And now they’ve got their playmaking outside linebacker to take the place of the aging Jason Taylor, who left for the hated New York Jets, and Matt Roth who was booted during the middle of last season.

Then the Dolphins went into the third round, and again fans stared at their televisions hoping the team would fill the hole at safety left when the team cut Gibril Wilson – actually some would argue that the hole was there all season, as Wilson’s poor play was visible from every seat in the stadium – but instead the team used their third pick to shore up their offensive line (named John Jerry – we were briefly concerned that the team might have drafted John Kerry . Fair enough; the team has plenty of talent on the line, but enough of those players turned out to be injury-prone last year that at one point during the season, the head coach was spotted on the sideline teaching a backup lineman how to play center.

Except the team still doesn’t have a safety. The Dolphins still have several draft picks remaining in the lower rounds this weekend, so perhaps they’ll pick up a couple of them and hope one of them turns out to be starter material. Or perhaps they’ll have to wait until June 1st, when some players from other teams become available via free agency.

For the Dolphins to be contenders this year, it’s likely that Odrick, Misi, Brandon Marshall, free agent inside linebacker acquisition Karlos Dansby, and whoever they end up acquiring at safety will all have to work out this season; years of bad drafting, bad signing, and bad trades prior to the Parcells era still have the team in a position where it can’t afford more than a minimum of personnel mistakes. Just ask Gibril Wilson.