Could the Dolphins Draft Their Own Kyle Hamilton?

The Miami Dolphins are scheduled to have the 13th overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft

Georgia defensive back Malaki Starks (24) warms up before the start of the SEC championship game against Texas in Atlanta, on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. / Joshua l. Jones Athens Banner-Herald USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

INDIANAPOLIS — There's a name that Miami Dolphins potential draft target Malaki Starks kept mentioning during his scouting combine media session Thursday morning, and that was Kyle Hamilton.

And when it comes after Starks revealed he had met with the Dolphins at the combine, well, it's almost impossible to not set the wheels in motion and start thinking about that idea of Starks becoming the team's very own Kyle Hamilton.

Oh, yeah, the same Kyle Hamilton that Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver saw on a daily basis as a member of the Baltimore Ravens coaching staff before he came to Miami.

"I watch a lot of his tape because I want to play like him," Starks said of Hamilton. "I want to see how I can put it into my playing style. You know, he's able to move around being a box, go cover, being the middle of the field. So just the kind of versatility he has, I'm trying to put that in my game as well."

THE DOLPHINS GO DEFENSE IN SI.COM'S LATEST MOCK DRAFT

Starks already has been projected to be the Dolphins' pick at number 13 overall in many of the thousands of mock drafts that already has been published, and we're thinking he'll be mentioned several times again before the night of April 24.

That was the case, for example, in the Sports Illustrated mock draft version 5.0.

It's not a big secret at this that the Dolphins' biggest needs are on the defensive line, the offensive line and in the secondary. We'd add backup quarterback, but flat-out don't see the Dolphins giving any thought to taking a quarterback in the first round.

It wouldn't unprecedented for the Dolphins to select a safety in the first round; in fact, they did seven years ago when they took Minkah Fitzpatrick with the 11th overall selection. That turned out to be a good pick because Fitzpatrick is a perennial All-Pro, though the issue is that it's happened with the Pittsburgh Steelers and not the Dolphins, though that's a story for another day.

After taking Fitzpatrick in 2018, the Dolphins had the 13th pick the following year and selected Christian Wilkins.

Hamilton, incidentally, was taken by Baltimore with the 14th overall pick in the 2022 draft.

The players who started at safety for the Dolphins in 2024 all are pending free agents — Jevon Holland, Jordan Poyer and Elijah Campbell — except for veteran Marcus Maye, who was released after starting three games.

If there's any concern about Starks as a prospect, it was a lack of big plays in his final season at the University of Georgia — he had one interception and three passes defensed in 2024 after having five picks and 14 PBUs the previous two years.

"I think I took a different role this year, just being able to be in a position to go play in the slot, maybe shut down the side of the field that they don't go to so the plays go to other side, or whatever the case may be," Starks explained. "But I think the thing about Georgia, you're not playing by yourself. There's so many playmakers on the field and the job is to get it done as a group. So it doesn't matter who makes the players only get made."

THE DOLPHINS' 2025 DRAFT PICKS

The Dolphins finished as one of four teams with an 8-9 record in the regular season, but their league-lowest .417 opponent combined winning percentage put them at the top of those four teams and 13th overall in the first round.

The Dolphins finished with the same record as the Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Cardinals and Atlanta Falcons and will rotate between 13th and 16th in every round, with the teams moving in a forward direction.

That means the Dolphins will go from 13th in the first round, to 16th in the second (because they can't go higher than 13th and have to return to the back of that line), to 15th in the third ... and so forth.

The Dolphins currently are slated to have seven picks in the 2025 draft, plus the expected three compensatory picks that should include a third-round selection for the loss of Robert Hunt and possibly a fourth for the loss of Wilkins. The compensatory picks likely will be announced in March.

More Miami Dolphins News:

feed