Paul gets his wish, goes to Dolphins in second round
Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier started to receive a “barrage of text messages” Friday morning.
The messages kept coming throughout the second round of the NFL draft.
“Kid is driving me crazy,” Grier said of the message from University of Houston left tackle Patrick Paul’s Roc Nation Sports agent. “He wants to be here.”
Paul got his wish.
The Dolphins selected Paul, a three-year starter for the Cougars and one of the nation’s best pass protectors, with the 55th overall pick in the second round.
As soon as the pick was announced, the focus turned to Paul’s can’t-miss, off-the-chart measurables. He’s 6-foot-7 1⁄2 and 331 pounds. His arm length is 36 1⁄4 inches, the longest of any prospect in the draft.
“Patrick Paul is enormous,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said shortly after the pick.
From the start, Paul passed the eye test with the Dolphins. He met with team brass multiple times at the Senior Bowl, NFL scouting combine and on a top-30 visit to the team’s Miami Gardens, Fla., headquarters.
“He fills up the hallway,” Grier joked of Paul’s arm length.
On his visit, Paul made his South Beach dreams known: “I don’t want to be anywhere but here,” Paul told Grier.
“A pretty giant man with a strong handshake letting us know from the combine on that he thought this was a fit, and clearly we agreed,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said.
Grier said Paul was the highest-rated player left on the Dolphins’ draft board. A first-team All-Big 12 selection, Paul allowed only one sack in 565 pass-block situations last season and had the highest passblocking grade among tackles nationally at 91.5, according to Pro Football Focus.
Miami was drawn not only by Paul’s size and length, but his improvement the past two seasons — which included a stepup in competition from the American Athletic Conference to the Big 12.
“You can see the growth in the player and wanting to get better,” Grier said. “We think he has another level he can take it to, and he wants to. He wants to be good and wants to be coached.”
Prior to the draft, Paul said he considered talk that he was a project” as motivation.
“He knows he’s got some things to work on,” Grier said. “He was very honest and direct and that’s what we really appreciated. We’re very excited to work with him because we think he’s a very talented player.”
While Miami officials said Paul could eventually work as a swing tackle early, his future is likely as the eventual successor to Terron Armstead at left tackle. Armstead, a Pro Bowler in both seasons with the Dolphins who will turn 33 before the start of training camp, contemplated retirement this offseason.
“(Paul is) what you look for in a left tackle,” said former Alabama coach Nick Saban, who is serving as an analyst for ESPN during the three-day draft. “This is kind of a developmental guy, but the kind of developmental guy you like because he’s got all the attributes you’re looking for. So, when he develops, he can be really good.”
Paul joins Billy Milner (first round by the Dolphins in 1994) and Sebastian Vollmer (second round by Patriots in 2009) as the only UH offensive linemen in program history selected in the first two rounds of the draft. UH has produced at least one draft pick in nine straight years.