Miami Dolphins Pick in the On SI Mock Draft
In the first of what figures to be several mock drafts before the actual event kicks off on the night of April 24, On SI network publishers predicted the first-round pick for the team they cover.
The Miami Dolphins have the 13th overall selection in the mock, which did not allow for trades, and we ended up selecting University of Texas offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr. at that spot.
The first 12 picks in the mock draft — and therefore unavailable to be selected — were QB Shedeur Sanders to Tennessee, DT Mason Graham to Cleveland, QB Cam Ward to the New York Giants, CB/WR Travis Hunter to New England, OLB Abdul Carter to Jacksonville, RB Ashton Jeanty to Las Vegas, WR Tetairoa McMillan to the New York Jets, S Malaki Starks to Carolina, CB Will Johnson to New Orleans, T Will Campbell to Chicago, DE James Pearce Jr. to Tennessee, and WR Luther Burden III to Dallas.
Starks, Burden and Johnson have been projected to the Dolphins in other national mock drafts, but it’s Johnson who stands out as the one player we see at the best fit given the team’s needs — should he be available at 13.
But because he wasn’t, we went with Banks to help with the mission of fortifying the offensive line, a group that has come under a ton of scrutiny since the end of last season, a group that GM Chris Grier said needed to be addressed in the offseason.
This was our analysis of the Dolphins pick at 13: “The Dolphins have several directions they could go with this pick because there are needs at almost every position, and trading down also would make sense. Banks’s ability to play guard adds to his value, and addressing the offensive line might be at the absolute top of the priority list.”
