Miami Dolphins Again Have Former First-Round Pick as Backup QB
The Miami Dolphins went a different route in selecting their backup quarterback for 2025, picking up a recent first-round pick looking to get his career back on track.
Whether choosing to go with Zach Wilson as the backup to Tua Tagovailoa will pay off won’t be determined for a while, it’s worth looking back at those previous times when the Dolphins did go with a former first-round pick as their No. 2 QB.
It has happened six times before, but no previous situation was as similar as what went down in 2006.
That season, Nick Saban’s second as Dolphins head coach, always will be remembered for the decision to go with Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees and how badly that backfired.
What might have been forgotten by now is the Dolphins trading for Joey Harrington to serve as Culpepper’s backup — four years after he had been the third overall selection in the NFL draft.
Sound familiar?
Zach Wilson joined the Dolphins four years after being the second overall selection in the 2021 draft, picked between fellow quarterback Travis Lawrence and Trey Lance.
Harrington didn’t struggle with the Detroit Lions to the same extent that Wilson did with the New York Jets, but enough that the organization was comfortable moving on from him for the low, low price of a conditional draft pick that became a fifth-round selection in the 2007 draft.
So how the trade pan out for the Dolphins?
Well, Miami signed Harrington a three-year extension after acquiring him but then released him the following offseason after Cam Cameron replaced Saban as head coach.
With Culpepper shut down after only four games in 2006 because of injury issues, Harrington ended up playing 11 games and the team went 5-6 in those games. While that record wasn’t good, put in the context of a 6-10 season for the team, it wasn’t terrible.
Harrington ended the season with a 77.2 passer rating, which was the second-best of his NFL career, but limped to the finish line. He produced a 0.0 rating in a Week 15 loss at Buffalo, got benched at halftime of the Week 16 game against the Jets, and watched Cleo Lemon play the season finale against the Colts.
Now, let’s examine how things worked out with the other former first-round picks who became Dolphins backup quarterbacks.
We’ve addressed his wildly over-criticized stint with the Dolphins, whose biggest problem was his inability to stay healthy.
As we’ve chronicled before, Bridgewater’s stats in his five appearances projected over a full 17-game season at more than 5,300 passing yards and Tyreek Hill reaching 2,300 yards with him as his quarterback.
But Bridgewater didn’t finish either of his two starts, the first against the Jets when he was taken out by the concussion spotter after one play. The Dolphins lost both those games.
In an ideal world, Rosen would have been the starting quarterback after they traded second- and fifth-round picks for him one year after the Arizona Cardinals made him the 10th overall pick in the draft.
It obviously didn’t play out that way because his mediocre performance as a rookie for Arizona actually turned out to be the high point of his career.
He was so overmatched in Miami that veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick started the first two games before the Dolphins decided to give Rosen a look in a rebuilding (or tanking) year. Then Rosen struggled so much and looked so overmatched while going 0-3, head coach Brian Flores went back to Fitzpatrick for the rest of the season — and it certainly can be debated whether that was the right move considering the Dolphins likely would have secured the first overall pick had they stuck with Rosen
This one is very unique because Pennington was the opening-day starter in both 2008 and 2009, but the Dolphins made the switch to 2008 second-round pick Chad Henne as their starter in 2010.
That came after Pennington had missed all but three games the previous year because of a shoulder injury.
With the Dolphins at 4-4, they decided to make a switch at quarterback and have Pennington start against the Tennessee Titans. Pennington didn’t make it out of the first quarter after sustaining yet another shoulder injury on what would become his last NFL play.
Ironically, Henne himself was injured after replacing Pennington in that Tennessee game and Tyler Thigpen finished out the 29-17 victory. As yet further evidence that won-loss record as a sole or dominant evaluation tool for a quarterback is ridiculous, Pennington got credited for a win that day.
Like Pennington, Kosar was 10 years into his NFL career when he started a game for the Dolphins in a backup capacity.
Kosar, who had been the first pick in the 1985 NFL supplemental draft, went 0-2 in his two starts that season, though he did throw for 368 yards in a 33-30 loss against the New Orleans Saints.
Kosar would be back with the Dolphins in 1996, Jimmy Johnson’s first season as head coach, but it was Craig Erickson who would get the three starts that Dan Marino missed the season — Kosar and Erickson both had played for Johnson at the University of Miami.
And we’ve got the best for last.
This one is very different, though, because Morrall joined the Dolphins a whopping 16 years after he had been the second overall pick in the NFL draft.
All Dolphins fans of a certain age should know that Morrall replaced an injured Bob Griese and helped the team win its final nine games on their way to a 14-0 regular season, then started the first two playoff games before Griese replaced him at halftime of the 1972 AFC Championship Game at Pittsburgh.
Morrall started one game each of the following three seasons, ending his Miami tenure with an 11-1 regular season record.
