Quarterback value
Dolphins host Mayfield, Allen on draft visits.
The two quarterbacks Adam Gase attended the Senior Bowl to watch and meet with will be visiting the Miami Dolphins this week.
According to a league source, Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield visited the Dolphins on Thursday, and Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen will meet with Miami’s coaching staff and executives today as part of the 30 draft prospects the Dolphins are allowed to host at the team’s Davie facility.
The Dolphins typically use their 30 visits on players they need medical, or character re-checks on. Teams are only allowed to talk with the prospects they host on visits because workouts are not allowed.
The Dolphins have the No. 11 pick in the upcoming NFL draft and both General Manager Chris Grier and Gase, the team’s coach, have publicly stated their desire to use an early pick on drafting a quarterback to be groomed for the future.
Mayfield and Allen are viewed as two of the four quarterbacks who will be selected in the first round. USC’s Sam Darnold is viewed as the best of the bunch, and will likely be the No. 1 overall pick.
From there, it’s anyone’s guess who will be the second quarterback drafted because it comes down to each team’s personal preferences when it comes to UCLA’s Josh Rosen, Mayfield and Allen.
“It’s rare that you’re talking about this
many guys at the top of the draft,” Gase said at the NFL Owners Meetings last month. “Whoever is getting who, you’re getting good players across the board, guys who are confident and have a lot of talent. It really comes down to your flavor.”
Darnold is the most polished of the four, but possesses a wind-up throwing motion that concerns some evaluators. Rosen has the best mechanics, but there are concerns about his personality and durability. Mayfield, a three-year starter at Oklahoma, is shorter than ideal (6 feet 1), and has an edgy personality that might scare off some teams. Allen has an elite arm, but struggled with accuracy throughout his collegiate career.
The last time an NFL draft possessed this many top-shelf quarterbacks was 2012, a class that featured Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Brandon Weeden, Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson, Nick Foles and Brock Osweiler.
Luck, Griffin, Tannehill and Weeden were all taken in the first round. Tannehill has a 37-40 record in five seasons as Miami’s starter.
The Browns, who own the first and fourth picks, Giants (No. 2 pick), Jets (No. 3), Broncos (No. 5), Bills (Nos. 12 and 22) and Cardinals (No. 15) are the teams expected to draft a quarterback early.
Grier has consistently stated he’ll only take a quarterback if he’s the highest-rated player on Miami’s draft board.
“The big thing is leadership. You need a guy with a dynamic personality,” Grier said when asked what he’s looking for from a quarterback. “Someone who knows how to handle people, both good and bad [situations], because you’re going to have ups and downs. [We need] a guy that’s steady, a guy that’s a winner. I think it’s important to find a guy that has won at high school and at the college level.”
Tannehill missed 20 games the past previous two seasons because of a left knee injury he initially sustained near the end of the 2016 season and re-injured during training camp last year, resulting in him getting his anterior cruciate ligament surgically repaired.
Tannehill has been medically cleared to participate in all of the Dolphins’ offseason training, which begins next week, and according to Gase, he’s Miami’s unquestioned starter.
The Dolphins restructured Tannehill’s contract this offseason to create $11 million in cap space. With the restructure, $16.7 million was turned into a signing bonus and Tannehill gets the rest ($775,000) as his base salary in 2018. However, the changes do not impact Miami’s commitment to Tannehill in 2019 and 2020, which remain opt-in years for the Dolphins.