2017 Draft Looking Worse and Worse for Dolphins
The departure of cornerback Cordrea Tankersley, who was waived Tuesday after being activated off the Reserve/COVID-19, really was not a great surprise.
Tankersley is trying to revive his NFL career after missing the past season and a half because of knee problems, and his initial injury followed a really rough start to the 2018 season.
The bigger picture with the Tankersley news is a 2017 Dolphins draft that continues to look worse with each development.
Tankersley became the second member of the draft class the Dolphins let go this year, following the trade of disappointing first-round selection Charles Harris to the Atlanta Falcons for a mere seventh-round pick.
What's made the Harris pick even worse is the fact that two members of the 2019 All-Pro defense were selected in the first round AFTER Harris — cornerback Tre'Davious White, who was taken 27th by the Bills and linebacker T.J. Watt, who was selected 30th by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The only pick in the first three rounds remaining from that 2017 Dolphins draft is second-round selection Raekwon McMillan, who was taken 54th overall that year. But McMillan is heading into his contract year, and there's no guarantee he'll be back in 2021.
To be fair, McMillan played some really good football late last season, but he'll have to convince the Dolphins to give him a second Dolphins contract.
And even then, it's easy to look at that 2017 draft and see the Dolphins could have had, instead of McMillan, either Saints running back Alvin Kamara or Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Pointing out missed players can be done with just about every team in every draft, but it doesn't make it any less painful.
The Dolphins did make two solid third-day picks in 2017, with fifth-round choice Davon Godchaux starting every game the last two years and seventh-round pick Isaiah Ford showing some good things at wide receiver when he finally got his opportunity late last season.
Godchaux has been a core player for the defense, but we'll see whether that merits him a second Dolphins contract because, like McMillan, he's heading for free agency in the spring of 2021 if he doesn't get a new deal or an extension.
The other two picks of the 2017 draft were guard Isaac Asiata in the fifth round and defensive tackle Vincent Taylor in the sixth. Asiata played two games for the Dolphins in two years and is now out of football, instead working as a police officer in Utah. Taylor played 21 games for the Dolphins in 2017 and 2018 and was somewhat of a surprise cut before the 2019 season. He's now a member of the Buffalo Bills.
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Alain Poupart has covered the Miami Dolphins on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @apoupartFins.
