The Miami Dolphins have spent the last two years building up a stockpile of young talent for their rebuilding effort, hoping to assemble the kind of talent necessary to properly align the Dolphins to be a young contender that has plenty of upside to be a winner for years to come. And, despite the fact that Miami was shelled by the Buffalo Bills in Week 2 of the 2021 regular season, the team is still well on that path — although they may not be as far along as many fans hoped they would be after Year 2 brought the team 10 wins.
Because Miami’s mantra during this time has been dedicated to drafting and developing talent from within — making draft selections to take advantage of the rookie wage scale and vetting out the hits and misses to secure a strong nucleus of young talent that can serve as the foundation of the roster. Miami will have that regardless of what happens over the next few months — but the early Super Bowl window for Miami is going to be reliant on their young players graduating their game to a higher level.
That hasn’t happened yet. Not even close.
Take a look at the 2020 NFL Draft for the most damning example of the limitations of the “draft and develop” approach.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is in a better place both physically and mentally in Year 2, but he was knocked from the Bills game with bruised ribs and the Dolphins would still benefit from seeing continued growth in how Tagovailoa sees the game pre-snap to avoid negative plays. He’s certainly improved. But is he improved to the degree to carry the offense to be a legit playoff contender? It is hard to say.
Left tackle Austin Jackson looks like a worse player in 2021 than he did in 2020. And that’s pretty alarming given that Jackson wasn’t particularly good in stretches of 2021 either. And, as a top-20 pick, Miami put all their eggs in Jackson’s basket as the left tackle — and the complete lack of development there could be crippling for Miami up front unless improvement is shown or changes are made.
Cornerback Noah Igbinoghene, the third 1st-round selection from that 2020 class, is presumably improved as well — but you’d never know it. He’s been a healthy scratch for the first two weeks of the regular season.
Of course, Miami has found successful hits in Robert Hunt and Raekwon Davis in the second round; but had the team had a clean sweep of surefire young talent with those first five picks, the Dolphins would be in a different place right now.
They may still get there. But “draft and develop” is at the mercy of the individual growth rates of every young athlete you bring into the building. And with all of those developmental curves taking place on different timelines, aligning team expectations to their growth may prove to be tricky for the Dolphins.