What is a dolphans And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show, we are going to get you ready for what's to come this week across the National Football League. Kyle Krabs joins us to talk about the biggest storylines ahead of free agency, his picks for Dolphins fits. We'll also do a mock draft for the top thirteen in the NFL
and a full seven round Dolphins mock draft. All of that and more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is the Drive Time Podcast, daff.
It's that time of year again, the brand new league year set to kick off here in just a couple of hours at least the legal tampering period, and then in a couple of days on Wednesday, we'll have the official start of the new league year, and all these reported signings will begin to become official. All the trades that happen over the last week and a half plus, all these signings over the next couple of days will become official. Kyle Crabs joins us to take us through
everything here. Kyle, you have put in a lot of groundwork here as we all do in this industry at this time of year.
How you feeling about it all? Man?
Like, what are you thinking about what's gonna happen, not just the Miami Dolphins, but across the NFL landscape. Give us your forty eight hours away from the new league year, ten thousand foot perspective, if you will.
Yeah, it was alleged as though there's an off season, which indicates there's things that don't happen and there's gonna be a whole lot of action for an off season here with the league. It'll be really interesting to see how the free agent class is received where you have a lot of teams that have a lot of cap, but the general consensus appears to be it's kind of an underwhelming draft class and a lot of facets. So
does that yield surprisingly large contracts? Does that yield teams that kind of a whole firm to values and don't get desperate and get into big time biding wars.
I think that's the number one thing that I'm.
Really excited to see how it all plays out here league wide here in the next couple of couple of days.
Absolutely, And I think we should acknowledge right off the top here that we are recording this podcast on Wednesday, so five days before it comes out, So bear with us on anything that changes over the next couple of days in the weekend, as I'm sure plenty of stuff will come across the wire. I think by the time I text you about doing the show today versus when we got on the podcast, it was like we've seen Christian Kirk, Tyler Lockett, a couple of guys already announced
as being released from their current club. So hang with us there. And speaking of that, we got some news on this Wednesday. I just wanted to ask you, Kyle, to help describe something for us on the show. Keon Smith and Cam Good, we're officially let me find the actual verbiage here. We're tendered the following attended exclusive rights free agents, Cam Good and Keon Smith. Can you tell us what exactly that means?
It's exclusive rights free agents are players that have not reached the three years of tenured or recrude seasons in the NFL, and when your contract expires and you have not accrued at least three seasons of NFL play, the team that you played for last has an opportunity to automatically effectively sign you with an exclusive rights free agent tender for whatever that year's minimum salary is for a player with however many years you've been in the league,
and that figure is not fully guaranteed. So if that player doesn't make the roster, it's not like you're out and lose that cap space for dead money, because you would pay it to them up front. It's just automatically returns the team chooses to withhold your rights for a minimum salary for an additional.
Year, and we should be seeing some movement.
There was a couple other players that were in a similar category. Grant to Bos was an exclusive rights free agent, and then Quentin Bell cater Coho and Anthony Schwartz restricted free agents, which follows somewhat similar language in terms of how thoseasically first ride of refusal in contract negotiations go with draft pick round tenders and all kinds of stuff
that we'll get into when those moves become official. But I want to start here, Kyle, or I guess we already began pivot now towards this changing landscape of free agency, and I was looking at the top, you know, one oh one list from from PFF or NFL dot Com and just kind of going through what people think in terms of how this class shakes out or you know, stacks up, or how it will shake out in terms
of who goes where. And I wanted to get your take on this because I have an opinion myself that I wanted to put to someone that I respect and kind of see if you think I'm on base, off base, or where how far off I am. It's like pretty rare nowadays that the great players make it into free agency,
Like those players are usually acquired via trades. I think teams do a much better job nowadays than they used to at getting the value for their want a way players or players that for whatever circumstances arises they can't keep. Now it happens like I think Jordan Brooks is a great player, but for a guy like him, he had to overcome a serious injury, you know, and prove that he could play after that injury.
That's that's kind of the point here.
There's usually at least like one reason that a guy is available, whereas in the past it felt like it was a little bit more guesswork. And I think maybe teams have better data these days than they did back then for external reviews, and you would sort of follow the cycle of spend, you know, overspend, get yourself kind of strapped for cash right up to the bubble, then that bursts, then you have to reset and kind of
do that cycle over again. But you still have these teams with super deep pockets, and I think gone are the days of restoring your roster with stars by signing free agents. I think you have to do it through the draft or trades, where free agency to me is a great place for quality starters. Maybe you can spend a little bit more cheese on one or two guys that is somewhere between that superstar and quality starter, you know, monikers, and then look to make your splashes in the trades.
And then of course the big key you've got a draft. Well, it's like a cheat code in this ever rising salary cap landscape. That's my take on free agency in twenty twenty five compared to what it was even just a few years ago.
What say you, Kyle, Yeah, I think the biggest thing is with the expanding tools that continue to exist for teams to continue to finance into the future interest free
with the growth of the salary cap. But then also the emergence of void years, which was really not a thing like five six years ago, and it has now become almost commonplace across the league for every team to have some number of contracts that have voids and continue to push more money that we're paying this year out into being debt against future, your salary cap and the
growth rate of all of that. Anybody you want to keep, you can generally keep unless you do it to the umpteenth degree and max it out for five six years, which you see a team in the NFC South that has put themselves in that position and their cash spend has really fallen and off and they have to continue to restructure all their contracts just to get compliant and
put feel a roster. So yeah, I would generally agree that the vast majority of free agents that are available are available for at least some degree of a hole in their resume that has you questioning, like, how stable of assigning is this for us moving forward?
Now?
I do think you look at a team like in New Orleans, They're probably one of the teams that I would consider it to be an exception to that, just because if they're giving market contracts out and they have for so long not done the reset of how they address their books. You've seen them have some quality players that have left in free agency because the Saints just simply couldn't offer a competitive contract.
To keep them.
But yeah, I'd say the standard across the league is that the flexibility that you're afforded is such that if you want to keep anybody and there's anybody worth keeping, you will find a way.
To make it work, and it'll work.
Like it it am I crazy to say that these because, like I remember, every year for longest time, I was like, here's the teams that have the most cap space, and that was so attractive to be one of those teams. But it doesn't really seem like it's that attractive of an endeavor anymore, because really the reason you have that much cap space is because you don't have enough internal
guys that are worth spending your cap on. Right, Like, it kind of seems like having a boatload of cap space in today's free agency landscape isn't necessarily a great thing.
I think if you have the right pieces in place, you can obviously spend the next several seasons of throwing your weight around. And I do still think it is a cyclical element of having a fresh start with your cap and then you build talent, and then your talent matures, and if you have a heavy draft focus, those contracts mature and then you know you're a little less active in free agency and you do have to cycle through.
And I think you saw that with the Dolphins when what they had the nineteen twenty and twenty one classes where they had such a large influx in draft picks, and then you've seen these contracts mature and how the Dolphins went about assembling their roster was a little different, and it feels like the pendulum for the Dolphins is
starting to swing back the other way. So I still think this is a very sicklical league in that regard, but as far as individual talents, it definitely gives you a lot more play in wiggle room.
Yeah, perhaps I should rephrase that and say that as long as you're spending what you're getting in return, then it's a good business. Like if you're spending you know, twenty million dollars in a player who's playing like a ten million dollar player, you do that enough times, you're going to be in a bad spot cap wise, So That's kind of my point is that there's there seems to be almost more supply these days of cash to spend than demand of what's available in terms of the
player out there. So just kind of a fun topic I wanted to kick around with you. And speaking of all that, like I said, some of these names are going to start going off the board. We'll put this podcast out probably morning, maybe like a late Sunday night release for the hell of it, but we'll see what happens with it. But I wanted to kind of just gauge where you think some of these top guys might go. And I think we start with Sam Donald. Where do
you think the top quarterback? What are the only like potentially franchise quarterback available? Right kind of feels that way in terms of not being in the free agent class. We might see trades that could happen, I suppose, but he's like the only potential franchise quarterback out there. Do you think he does get that type of deal? And where do you think he might wind up.
I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up landing with the Raiders if it's not back in Minnesota. It seems like there's some interest to get that dumb. Minnesota has cap space, but the terms of that, and they kicked around doing a franchise tag. I think they have a really fine line to walk there in Minnesota with Sam Donald.
But Raiders are number two in the NFL and salary cap space at their disposal, they're picking sixth, so they are generally on the outside looking in for opportunities to swing the bat for top quarter top quarterback or quarterbacks, depending on who you talk to. So I could totally see them being a team that with Pete Carroll, they
are probably going to want to be aggressive. They hired the NFL's oldest head coach this offseason to be their head coach in year one, and he's already the oldest head coach, so like, you don't have the same timeline or luxury as some of the teams that went super young and hired really young coaches that hey, if everything works, you might be here for a couple decades, you know, And maybe Pete Carroll does that, but I'd be surprised.
Right it feels like his time on task is going to be a little shorter, and i'd expect them to haveack with proper urgency in that regard, and.
Just again to reiterate, we've already seen on this day Joe Tooney betrayed to the Chicago Bears or reports, so that it will happen once the new league year kicks off. Jonah Jackson also on the move from the Rams to the Bears, so the Bears loaded up on the offensive line with some pricey veterans. So far in the trade market, Deebo Samuel has left the Niners, or I should say will when the new league year begins to go to
the commander. So again, a lot of big moves are gonna happ by the time you guys hear this podcast.
And don't forget DK Metcalf officially requesting a trade, which came out since we started recording this.
Though you asked me before it came on, what's going to happen during the recording? There you go right off the top, and that was kind of, I guess somewhat expected, right. He's expressed some less than happy thoughts in Seattle and Tyler Lockett on the move, so man talk about a generation shift there in Seattle, moving off some some pretty
big names. If that does in fact happen for both those guys, Kyle, I'm looking at the NFL dot com Top one hundred players, and three of the top five players and their free agency list are Eagles World champion. I mean Milton Williams, who was a big get for them, Zach Bond was the biggest probably value by of the entire NFL calendar last year, and then Josh Sweat. Do you think those guys are going to depart Philly and go elsewhere? Do they come back and try to run it back?
I would expect that you will probably see a majority of that group bounce out. With Milton Williams and Josh Sweat in particular, feel like they're very poised for I think big Cashian opportunities. The past rush market is always one that will run hot, and those two guys individually, as guys who can rush on the inside and guys who can rush on the outside, I expect they'll have pretty robust markets because, as we said, there are a couple of teams I just have a lot of spending
power at their disposal. Zach Bonn is an interesting one because.
Frankly, he.
Was in a couple of different systems and it never really clicked. And then he's in Philadelphia and it does. So how much does he value potentially cashing out now and signing a big contract that goes somewhere else or signing for a little less to come back and continue to play well and fortify his resumes, approven quality, NFL starter And what that long term and short term decision looks like for him, I think will be a little
bit more interesting. But I think the two defensive linemen I would guess are going to be all the way out.
Just such an interesting look here.
I mean, I'm looking at the number ten and eleven are Devonte Adams and Amari Cooper, two guys were required for mid round draft picks. I mean, Adams goes to the Jets for a third round pick last year, and now he's released. I'm looking at number whereas a number eighteen asan Redick was a holdout for half the year, now goes into his age thirty season.
Like it's just kind of the landscape of it right now.
And that's why I want to get to here in a second on the second side of the show and talk about your Dolphins offseason plan. But before we do that, one last question for you about general NFL.
Are there any.
Obvious names Matt with team matches out there that you see on this list, whether it's the top player on the free agency list or player one oh one, whatever it might be. Are there any like clear and obvious player team fits that you see, and maybe it's a Miami Dolphin out there, I don't know.
Whatever. You think.
It's tough for especially for Miami, just to kind of know what the market is gonna look like. I think there's some very low hanging fruit with say Aaron Banks, the offensive guard from San Francisco, who played in a scheme that has a lot of the same ver verb. He brings some different traits to the front that I think is a player that would make a lot of
sense for the Dolphins. But Tom Pellisero this morning reported, you know, he was one of the name five names on the list of players who might get paid more than you expect and invoke the Robert Hunt contract. And if that right, yeah, that's the stratosphere that that the dollars get there, then I'm not going to pick that to be a fit for the Dolphins.
But I made a face there, Kyle. That's why he's breacting too. By the way, it was the you know the meme of the lady making guy. Yeah, yeah, there you go, Kombucha te girl. Either one works. I was just surprised when I heard that name with that figure next to it.
So I think, if the dollars make sense, Aaron Banks would be a great addition that has familiar with the terminology and a lot of the core concepts. But that's I think what makes it hard to pencil in a fit for Miami is they don't have one hundred million.
Dollars in cap space.
Although generally speaking, like I do think they will be much have the opportunity to be much more competitive this year in free agency if they want to be than what they were last year when they're operating cap throughout March and April.
I think, really, you only ever got off to like eighteen.
Million dollars, which coincided with the plan to really make sure they protect those compensatory picks which we're going to cash in on this year. And you know, if coach Weaver gets a head coaching job next year, two more third round picks down the pipe as well, if that does, in fact happen.
So I want you to put a pin in that, Kyle.
I want to come back and get into your Dolphins offseason plans.
So far, he's.
Done a really good job of kind of parsing through all of this. If you want cap language and money and the economic balance of it all to attach the talent evaluation. Kyle is your guy for the Lockdown Dolphins podcast. Let's go ahead and take a break, come back and get into all of that. Here next on the Draft Time Podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by AutoNation.
My guest today is we are just hours away from the new I keep saying new league year, but it's the official tampering period before the new league year kicks off. Is Kyle Krab to take us through all things Dolphins off season? It's it's Christmas morning, isn't it, Kyle? Like I remember when this when the NFL wasn't like a twelve month news cycle like it is now. That time between the Super Bowl and free agency felt like it took forever, but now it like it flies by and
I'm still very excited. But back in the day, it was like it was like opening Day to me, free agency day one, Where do you come down on how this how this kind of moves the needle for you.
I'll never forget some of those free agent windows in my youth where the Dolphins would be very active and aggressive and it always felt like a holiday. And as I've gotten older, like maturing is realizing maybe some of the biggest contracts aren't the most exciting ones.
You know, it's it's the who was it? I believe it was. Mike Rabel did his.
Introductory Like Show appearance with the New England Patriots and their their team media and he said, there's there's two chapters of the first wave of free agency. The first one is the guys who want to optimize their earning potential, and the second one is the guys who are looking for the right fit for their next stop. And that really resonates with me with a lot of your best value players are not necessarily the players that are the best name brand players for where they were with their
old team. It's the players who find the the Aaron Brewers of the world who finds like a marquee fit that that's tailored to all of his strengths and he signs a market deal that but it's not a record setting deal, but man, that contract really looks great. That Jordan Brooks, a you know, John new Smith was a little bit different because he was cut from his old
contract so he could sign early. He wasn't an expiring contract, he was a street free agent, but kind of the same spirit of that as far as those guys that Dolphins fans should be able to relate to. As we talk about this as a league wide thing, players like that that that you know, you're not resetting market contract
rates and all that kind of stuff. But man, you got a player that a team has a vision four and understands what they want, and the player sees how they can be a piece of that and it all fits together like that to me is the really fun part of what free agency has become now for.
Me, and I think where the Dolphins to your point, we're really successful last year with Jordan Brooks, with Aaron Brewer, with John new Smith, and with you know, getting a Clays Campbell for that matter as well, was obviously very
fruitful for the Miami Dolphins. Going back to Verheem most of a couple of years back as well, they've done well to Ron Arms at Connor Williams to bring guys in a free agency that have been big impact players, Kyle, I have four topics for you within this segment, and we're gonna try to do it in about twelve fifteen minutes here, so you can tie that up the way you want to. But I want to start off here because I come to you a lot for this because
famously not a math guy. And you say the same thing on your show too, but that is not accurate in my opinion when you talk about cap and money in the NFL, because you are so good at the stuff. Brother, take us through the cap situation the Dolphins find themselves in and what's going to afford them the opportunity to do, what's going to restrict them to do? Like, just take us through where we are right now from a financial standpoint for the Miami Dolphins.
I think there's a lot of different levers, hypothetical levers that the team can pull, whether that's names like Jordan Brooks or Austin Jackson. You can take their base salaries and convert a majority of that into a signing bonus, which would allow you to then spread it out over the next couple of years worth of salary cap. And you know those two names combined, you're talking it's a little over thirteen million dollars in cap space for just
restructuring Austin Jackson and Jordan Brooks, those two by themselves. Obviously, you saw Tron Armstead who chose to restructure his contract down to the VET minimum, and it saves the Dolphins about twelve million dollars in cap space while he decides what his future looks like and they'll carry him on the roster until he ultimately makes a decision.
But that's a cap savings.
And you know they have another contract that's a big base salary player that we didn't see last year in Bradley Chubb. What the question I have is do they do what the Dolphins in Toronto arms that did last year, which was they renegotiated a salary, They put some more money into incentives that he could earn on the field, but they cut what the base salary was to prevent
you from opening another need on your roster. So it'll I probably either be that or potentially a post June first cut if they can't come to some kind of agreement on Bradley Chubb. But it's one of the bigger cap hits on the team, So I would imagine they're going to end up doing something with that, and then you have the Aram Brewers of the world that you
can you know, he signed a three year contract. You could do a restructure on that if the Dolphins really wanted to, And if they they did restructures for all of the players that have base salaries and multiple years left on their contracts, if you include Voyd years in there, they could get potentially up over forty forty five million dollars in cap space if they chose to do that.
And that's before you get into internal free agents and what you do with Cater Kohu and you know, what do you come to terms with DeShawn Hand or Benito Jones or Kalais Campbell's guys that played on the front or Tyrell Dotson. You know, that's before you start making those kinds of moves.
And hopefully they can afford to do that and then have the draft success kind of like they had last year, but maybe even more so this year with more draft picks to help themselves accommodate those expenses down the road with cheap contracts as well, with rookie rookie contracts for those impactful players right away and the next, My four questions for you is the retention the players that are
due to expire, have their contracts expire this week. What are you looking at in terms of the Dolphins internal free agents and how you might attack that. What's your goals there in that position or that phase of free agency?
Yeah, I think you identify players who you think have their best football ahead of them or were really critical pieces of the leadership component. And then I include that to put Kalais Campbell's name out there. I'm not sure he'll be in any rush to make a decision. As a guy who's pushing almost twenty years in a league,
he'll probably take his good old time. But a name like cater Coo, who's a restricted free agent where you have the opportunity to We talked a little bit about exclusive rights free agent, but he's played three years, he's still a restricted free agent. The Dolphins can put a tender on him that gives them a right of first refusal, so it's a flat rate for a couple million dollars.
Other teams can negotiate with him. If cater comes to terms with one of them, the Dolphins can look at the offer sheet and say, yeah, we'll match that, so he's under contract for these terms for us now. Or they could say we're not gonna match that, and then cater would leave and then go sign with that of the team. So it's kind of putting the market of the player into the hands of the league versus you trying to figure out terms for yourself. Depending on how
high of a tender that you put on. There's a second round restricted free agent tenor that if you choose not to match the offer sheet and he goes and sign somewhere else, you get a second round draft pick back as compensation for that. So that's a strategic move that they'll have to make. The look at names like Tyrell Dotson, who obviously showed a lot when the Dolphins brought him in off Waivers, made a couple of big plays. Is a younger player I think still has something to prove.
He was on a one year deal last year and it didn't work out. Flashed a little bit here. I'd love to get him back and competing for a starting job. And if he doesn't win a hypothetical starting job with whoever else you bring in, it's another depth player could play special teams for you. I wouldn't mind getting some of that defensive line rotation back as well, whether that's Benito, Jones, Deshan Hand. Those guys played last year for VET minimum.
I think they've earned more than that. But I don't think those are the kind of break the bank players that you look at and say, I don't think that the numbers are going to be able to work out here and we're not gonna be able to have them on.
The team next year.
Yeah, and guys they can produce for you at that rate again, So that's how you supplement a roster that has guys that are top of the line, a top of their position in terms of the market and their production every single year.
So I love that.
And I'm just going to go ahead and spoil a little bit of your next answer here, because, for instance,
I want to hear your goals. You've done a good job parsing out how to attack this offseason and not just using names rather kind of ideologies of how you want to do that, And like the Tyrel Dotson comment is a perfect segue into that, because I think ideally for you, Kyle and your approach to add competition with guys that are hungry for this stuff is to go get a a bring back a Tyrel Dotson, and then acquire some competition for him at some point, whether it's
in the draft or free agency. Tell us about your goals for ideologies this offseason for the Dolphins.
I think young and Hungary is a big, big central piece where you know you as a team, I think probably have to work on mitigating some of your injury risk and just just use the linebacker room as an example, where the other figure in that room that was a prominent figure down the stretch was Anthony Walker. And Walker's
a well tenured player. He's an established veteran at the NFL level, but before he got to Miami kind of had some issues with staying healthy and staying on the field, and then that lo and behold ends up happening again in twenty twenty three or twenty twenty five four. En Now, if he told me that at a certain price point, Anthony Walker's back, you'd say, hey, you know, it's veteran depth in the room. It's not the worst thing in
the world. But as the Dolphins are transitioning out of some of their bigger contracts and they're getting ready to kind of build the next cycle of the team, and they want to be able to compete through that more cost control players on rookie contracts that can give you a lot of competition without over committing long term to veteran players. Is a balance that I think you have to walk. And a guy like Tyrrell Dotson makes sense.
For he signed a one year proved deal last year and was on waivers, but then he played well here, So okay, you know, let's stay up with the inflation of the salary cap and another one year deal, prove it deal. But then ideally we have an opportunity in the draft to bring somebody in who's young, hungry, cost controlled for multiple years.
He can compete with you and we can see what that looks like.
I love the thought of that and the evaluation, or rather the Dodson signing told me they had a high evaluation of him last offseason and that was you know, sprung to the David Long release to bring him in because I think they viewed him as a starting linebacker in this league.
So really good stuff there. Let's go ahead and close it up with this man.
Your targets, Like when you look at this list of players and we talked about maybe not being his top heavy kind of akin to this draft. But there's a lot of meat in this free agency class, and I'm looking at players and I think can come in right away and help this football team. It's a fun list of shop off of Kyle. Who stands out to you the most from anybody you want, go ahead and tell me about it.
Man.
If I could add any one player, it might be Trayvon Morig. He's so good the safety from the Raiders twenty five years old, was in that twenty twenty one draft class, was top fifty pick, was a really good high post player at TCU and has really evolved his game to be really good tackler and really good playing the run now as well. So I think you have a multifaceted player that if you told me it mirrored what Marcus Williams's edition in Baltimore looked like when they
signed him a few years back. That's kind of the vision I have for what he can be as a player, and that's an impact starter. So I think Trayvon Morigs a name that really stands out to me, depending on what they want the the hierarchy of the secondary in general to look like as well. I have my eyes on Nate Hobbs as another player from that Raider secondary who's one of my favorite potential fits. He can play inside and outside. He actually had some nice tape against
the Dolphins this year. That Raiders defense fell apart a little bit because they got hurt so much up front. But Hobbs is a hyper competitive guy, and because he will probably get penciled by some teams as a nickel inside player, it kind of puts a little bit more of a glass ceiling on what the market might look like versus you see top outside corners now are getting eighteen nineteen twenty million, but most of your top inside
and nickel corners are getting seven eight nine million. So it's a value proposition in a free agency that I think sets you up to me be a little bit more competitive for some of the best players if you're willing to go for players in those certain position groups that historically just have lower market feeds.
The merrig comment here from Greg Rosentho NFL dot com said, I send a rough draft of my list of some of the smartest people I know in the business to ask for their outliers. More than one said mereg could not be placed high enough. So I think people agree with you across the board on that. And to your
point about Hobbes versus the Dolphins. Like watching that tape, he was like not backing down from Tyreek Hill in that game, which I thought was like, that's that's kind of the temperament you want to get from a new player. You can kind of trust that they're going to come in here and work the right way when you watch the way they play against higher competition. Just real quick, Kyle, Just some names off top, because I would be a missic. We didn't talk about this on the show. Offensive Line.
Who are some of the targets the Dolphins fans can look for in free agency across the offensive line?
A couple of interesting names.
I would say Joe Noteboom as a utility player, maybe more of a swing depth type player, but look pretty promising in that RAMS system early all before he got his big contract extension, had an injury there, but still a player in his late twenties that has for position flexibility that I think the Dolphins as we don't really like position flexibility. I look at Will Fries from the Indianapolis Colts, Aaron Banks, who we already mentioned as well
Will Hernandez from Arizona. I would put James Daniels from Pittsburgh in that bucket as well, although he's coming off
of a pretty significant injury last year. But if you sign a player like that and you hedge appropriately and then you draft in accordance, I think you can give yourself enough bites of the apple where maybe you fortify and protect yourself enough and you have some good competition between veterans and young guys, which goes back to the whole objective of what we're trying to replicate as many rooms as possible.
Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to go into a game when you have a couple of injuries and there's James Daniels waiting for you coming off like a pup or something. If that were to happen, opposed to a street free agent you have to put into a basically a must win playoff game in December, Kyle, last break right there, come back. We're gonna mock this NFL draft through pick thirteen and give you a full seven round Dolphins mock draft. That's next. Kyle Krabs, my guest
from the Lockdown Dolphins podcast. Draft Time podcast, your host, Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. We've talked about the internal free agents, the external free agents, and everything in between, and now it's time to pivot to Kyle's favorite time of year and mine and his true area of expertise, the NFL Draft. We just got back from Indy last week, the combine a rap, and now here we are talking about free agency. Before you know it,
it'll be April and draft night. And so, Kyle, I wanted to go through a little mock draft with you, and I think I'll do the honorable hosting thing here and give you the first pick, unless you want to defer it to me. What do you prefer the evens of the odds here to kick us.
Off, I will take the odds perfect, So go ahead and give us that Titans number one overall pick, assuming that they stay put, no trades, no trades allowed.
I think they take Abdulla Carter, Pass Rusher Penn State in Heliones with their first overall pay that articularly, I do think they will trade out.
But okay, that already throws a wrench into my into my entire mock that I had planned out here. So that's how this thing goes good. It goes That's exactly right. I do think I'll go cam Ward next for the Cleveland Browns. I think you guys know how I feel about him as a prospect. I'm hopeful that he finds his way to the NFC because I feel like the AFC is already at capacity for good quarterbacks.
So I hope the Giants make a move to go get him.
But otherwise I think he goes off the boards either the Titans or the Browns. Should the Titans pass on him, so we go abdul Carter cam Ward one two, bing, bang, what you got next?
For the Giants of the New York Giants in this scenario, I will have them taking Travis Hunter wide receiver corner from University of Calira.
I also passed on Sugar Sanders for the Giants in that spot in my mock draft, so that brings us to the Patriots, and I am going to take who I have as O line one. This might come with some pushback, but I'm taking armand Membu. I think they're gonna want to protect Drake may. I don't see the value for the skill spots here to help him get his weapons in order at this particular point in time. So I'm gonna go top offensive lineman, armand membou to the Patriots.
Okay, so Jacksonville at five.
Yep, you know, don't like you don't know, you know, you know the you know, the first fifty firming.
I think at this instance where you have Jacksonville has needs a corner defensive tackle, I wouldn't be surprised if Kenneth Grant ends up jumping Mason Graham for the Michigan defensive tackles where Graham came in a little smaller. He came in under three hundred pounds grand cut weight to three point thirty and was gonna run four eight like he's just got And I know they made a GM change there, but that's a very stylistic type of fit
with some of the other personnel that Jacksonville has. So at number five, I will go with Ken Grant defensive tackle to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
We are becoming that like married couple that starts to look alike after too long, Like our shared acetic for players is becoming too common. Because I also had Grant jumping Mason Graham for that spot, right there, so once again in lockstep. I'm gonna this might be a curveball to you, Kyle, and I'm curious to hear if you think it is. But I'm gonna go ahead and go
Johad Campbell for the Raiders number six. I think this guy's gonna be a force multiplier, a three down player, a guy that can rush the quarterback and can spy the Josh Allens and Lamar Jacksons of the world. I would love him in Miami, but I think he's long gone by the time we picked number six for the Raiders.
Johad Campbell, you are correct that that is a curve ball. So Jets at seven, they do have a quarterback need moving on and kind of resetting from Aaron Rodgers. They're kind of embracing this year as a transitional year from them. I don't I'm not buying the Shaar Sanders falls out of the first round buzz there. I'm sure he would love the opportunity to go to New York where he's as cool as the other side of the pillow when it comes to scrutiny immediately, like very comfortable in his
own skin. I think you need that to have success. In that market. So I'll go Shooter Sanders at number seven.
Of the Jets.
There you go, love it. I figured he'll go somewhere in the top ten, but I didn't know where to put him exactly. The Raiders probably is the spot form I feel like makes it there, but I don't know. I just I see people pike him at six. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I can see Pete carrollby and like, I got to get my legion a boom back together.
And even though that wasn't a linebacker driven defense, like Johan Campbell can just do so much for you, kind of the way Michael Bennett did and Hooways off the edge there for the Seahawks for all those years. That brings me to the Carolina Panthers at number eighth. Man, I feel like I have two options here, and I'm it's like, do you do you take the guy that you think should go or do you save him for the Dolphins.
That's kind of I guess why I should do that for Campbell. We want the challenging board at thirteen. Okay, perfect, So I'm gonna stick with what I think here. I'm gonna go Shamar Stewart. I think that the edge from A and M.
You know they lost Brian Burns a couple years ago, trying to replace that pass rush production for that defense. Shamar Stewart to me, is going to be an absolute base in this league. He goes to the Panthers number eight.
For me, New Orleans at nine, you could make an argument for a pass catcher.
You can make an argument for potentially a corner.
If they don't end up getting They've got an expiring contract there.
That's just a challenge for them.
I think to kind of find with paulse and Adebo market rate there with some of their other restrictions. So Jaday Baron gets some consideration. I think Tyler Warren gets some consideration. But if you tell me Mason Graham's on the board at number nine, I know they have Brian Berzi there at defensive tackle, but they have some other expiring contracts. Graham is a three down player on the interior. I'll pick him at number nine to the Saints.
I like that quite a lot.
And for number ten for the Chicago Bears, this was almost like an automatic offensive line position until today, really
with two veteran acquisitions. For that, I should say Wednesday I went to this podcast a couple of days back, but I'm gonna pivot off the offensive line for the Bears there, which should make some Dolphins fans happy because I will push one more offensive lineman too the Dolphins spot potentially, and I am going to take the guy that I've been talking about all spring and winter and Tyler Warren and try to help give Kayla Williams some more help in terms of, you know, that security blanket,
that checkdown guy. He also can help their run game and just kind of help that offense with everything that he does because he's a three face player on offense.
Tyler Warren to the Bears number ten overall.
It'll be interesting to see if Invidy triangulates this recording time window.
Shout out.
Max Crosby just got made made the highest played nine quarterback in the NFL within the last minute. While we've been doing this mock three years, one hundred and six point five million with ninety one and a half million guarantee.
For Max Kraft. It's amazing. I'll print deep penny and well deserved. Great player.
We already picked for the Raiders though, so we couldn't tie in a Max Crosby running mate talking point with Johi Campbell San Francisco at A eleven. I want to go offensive line where you have Trent Williams, you have a right tackle upgrade opportunity. You could take somebody to step in for Trent Williams long term, who maybe plays guard in.
The short term.
But I look at their cornerback situation where Trevarris Ward is expected to leave in free agency. He and his family obviously had a very challenging situation where they lost a child, and he's talked about the opportunity to reset and put roots down somewhere else and the pain that they feel being there. So he's leaving in free agencies is the continued expectation. I don't know how much I'm buying.
Like the whole league just decided to sell Will Johnson right Like, I know he had the turf toe injury this year and he missed part of the season, but that takes really electric and good and he's got length and size and they have a need at that spot. So you could put me down for Will Johnson and eleven and the forty nine ers.
I had John going off earlier in the mock. I did before you came on, and then I had Baron going on that spot for the Niners. So once again, great minds think alike. For the Cowboys, I'm taking the
low hanging fruit. I'm taking the fact that the running game just never got going last year and the fact that they were a Zeke Elliott team when they've drafted him back in twenty sixteen, Ashton gent from Boise State, get yourself a run game with one draft pick right there in Gent go in that direction for the Cowboys,
and that leaves us here with the Miami Dolphins. Kyle and on my particular board, I've got Will Campbell, I got Chavon Ravel, nick A Man Worry, I've got Josh Simmons, Carson Sweashinger, Johnny Barron, I've got Malachai Starks Like, there's some pretty damn good options here at Jalen Walker, what do you think about what could this board could look like here for the Miami Dolphins.
I think we have a lot of names that we really like that if somebody's coming to knocking on your door and wants to come up for whatever reason, I have a hard time not picking up the phone and listening to what they have to say, because you could tell me that you could walk away from this first round pick opportunity with Will Campbell. Jaday Baron for me, is very high up on that list. I love Josh Simmons on the offensive line as well, even a wide
receiver with Amca Buca. Kelvin Banks is a popular name to get tied to Miami if I got more names than I can count on one hand. You really like the way the board falls here, I would lean into Juday Baron with the Dolphins moving on from Kendall Fuller. But Will Campbell here at thirteen is a big surprise, and most of the league is leaning him to playing guard. And I know that's one of those things where the traditional ideologies of how the Dolphins have approached these picks.
They like using these high draft picks on premium traditionally premium positions. But one of the times in which they didn't do it was when they drafted a safety with Mika Fitzpatrick because it was just too good of a value on the consensus board to pass up. And I do wonder if Will Campbell at thirteen would qualify for that.
Yeah, I to me his ability to play two spots and project back outside after a run inside a guard would make him very attractive to me, because I think that once, and that's tough to say, because I feel like both our tackles are pretty young players. Obviously, Patrick Ball, second year Austin Jackson will see, you know, maybe maybe the injuries don't sore itself out over the long term and he does wind up, you know, being the right
tackle down the road. But you have options, you have flexibility there, So I like that pick quite a lot. To your point, I look at a couple of like force multipliers on defense. Carson Swashinger I think is good enough to go in this spot. Kyle like we've talked about him a lot, nick a man worried that the standout safety. I think all these guys are probably better options in a move back if you could acquire maybe another Day two pick somewhere. But to your point, I
like the way this board falls. I'm a huge Savon Revel fan. The cornerback from the east, Colin six foot three, he probably if he would have ran, probably runs a four to three something in you know, at his forty time. Big fan of his game. So lots of fun options here. So we're gonna We're gonna stick with Will Campbell. Will make that our official selection here on the Locked On
Draft Time crossover podcast mock Raft. But can you take me to Kyle through quickly an entire seven round mark for us here with Will Campbell, they're on the first give me your your your seven round picks for the Dolphins.
Yeah.
So if we have Will Campbell in the first round, I'm gonna stay with the beef and I'll go Alfred Collins defensive tackle from Texas in the second round. You talk about getting tougher in the trenches and having an attitude, but guys they can move.
He's he's like it.
If Raykwon Davis had developed into I think what his early career Alabama potential look like it was going to be, I think it would look like what I think Alfred Collins is already. So I really like that foil alongside Zach Seeler on the defensive interior. If I were to go to the third round at ninety eight, I really am hoping that we end up seeing Laithan Ransom from Ohio State available in that spot. I think he is
a big time tone setter coming down from depth. I think with one of the fourth round picks, whether it's and.
Just real quick, yeah, these are compensatory picks that have not officially been awarded, but they're projected to be in these spots.
Just want to make sure we get that clear across.
Yeah, there's a projected three for the contract that they lost for Robert Hunt, and then a projected fourth round pick for Christian Wilkins because he did not meet the twenty five percent snap minimum that would have qualified him to be a third round pick. I think with one of the fource it's a good spot to kind of see what the quarterback market looked like looks like there, whether that's Dylan Gabriel, whether that's I don't think Tyler
Shuck's gonna be there from Louisville. Sounds like he's got a little bit more fanfair despite being older player. But that's the range I would be comfortable with some of the injury risk there. I also really like Will Howard. That might not be popular a popular opinion because he didn't have a great throwing session throwing the guys he'd never thrown two in his life before. But I like the toughness, the intangibles. I think he's got a nice arm. He's a big guy that can win within the pocket,
but is athletic enough to get outside the pocket. So so Will Howard's the name that it appeals to me with one of those Day three picks as well, I guess I shouldn't double dip and go offensive line, right if we took Will Campbell at thirteen. So with that that other linebacker spot I'd be looking for. Whether it's a Kobe King from Penn State, another physical guy again, somebody to kind of come in and compete with what you have, presuming you end up bringing back Tyrell Dotts.
So that gives us Campbell, Collins, ran Sell double dipping it tight end in the fifth round. Yeah, with I'm guessing your UCLA boy, or maybe it is a Jalen Conyers. Is it Jackson Hawes? What do you think in there? Give me those last two names. Jackson Hawes, who's a traditional why smaller grizzly bear who plays in line tight end, but they used him in motions.
He can block in space, he.
Can block the line, he can blot linebackers and hens like a really diverse gun player and foil that with Jalen Conyers from Texas Tech, who was visually from Olahoma and then transfer Mayer Zone State for a couple of years high school quarterback. Not dissimilar to Tyler Warrens, so who's kind of got some of that same background where they can see the rec snap stuff to him. I
kind of liken him too. What happens if you took Elijah Higgins who was a Dolphins draft pick from Stanford one day three couple of years ago and just blew him up two hundred and sixty pounds and like that, That's what I think Dalen Conyers is. But like I think there's a lot of overlap there where man as a player that would would make a lot of sense. And then in the seventh round, I'd go with a running back at that stage, like a Tije Brooks. I would go with a big bodied wide receiver to just
to kind of diversify that room a little bit. So maybe at Jackson Meeks from Syracuse, and then I go with some special teams competition. Give me James Burnett, punter from Albaion.
Love it.
I love it, And I love your idea of the double dip. Should you miss out on like cause this We've had this discussion about the balance of the draft, being like, well, you've got this one tight end that kind of stands on above the rest, but it's a deep class in general, and the defensive tackle spot kind of feels similar, although there's more of them up top. Like if you can't get Kenneth Grant early in the draft, then maybe you come back and double dip on you know,
a CJ. West and a Jamari Caldwell, or maybe if you can't get the tight end you come back and double dip the way you did with Conyers and Jackson Hawes.
I love that idea, in that concept.
So, Kyle, I think you fixed the Miami Dolphins day, my friend, thank you for doing this with me today.
A longer episode.
Again, this is all going to be basically relevant here in a few hours, but we thought it important to get out some good content about what might happen over the next week into the draft season. Here with my favorite co host here on the show, Kyle kras Appreciate your time today, man. You can find him on social at Kyle Krabs. He's the host of the Dolphins Podcast and Locked on NFL Scouting podcast, author of Touchdown Miami. Kyle,
you're the man. Appreciate your time once again, and we will see you soon, my friend.
Thanks for Travis. There he goes quick outro.
Because we did a lot on this podcast, please be sure subscribe, rate, review the show, Follow me on social at Wingfold NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. We're gonna have breakdowns of all these new players. We're gonna have the players themselves on the podcast. You don't want to miss all of that as we get you ready for free agency here with the Miami Dolphins. Check out the YouTube channel for media availabilities, Dolphins HQ, the Fish Tank Podcast with Seth and Juice, and of course last
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