NFL Mock Drafts: Would Dolphins Take an RB in Second Round?
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Mock draft season has kicked off and is getting in full swing as the 2023 combine approaches.
The Miami Dolphins aren't featured prominently in those mocks because they don't have a first-round pick for a second consecutive year as the result of the trade that brought Bradley Chubb from the Denver Broncos as well as the NFL taking away the team's own first-round selection after finding the Dolphins guilty of violating the league's tampering rules with their improper contact with Sean Payton and Tom Brady.
But have no fear, a lot of mock drafters go beyond the first round even at this stage of the offseason, more than two months away from the draft.
And two of those mock drafts had the Dolphins taking a running back with their first selection, which will be the 51st overall (though technically the 50th player selected because there will be no pick 21, which was Miami's original spot).
The 33rd Team website pegged the Dolphins to take Jahmyr Gibbs from Alabama and Brentley Weissman from The Draft Network had them going for Zach Charbonnet from UCLA.
Gibbs is a speedy, explosive running back in the mold of Alvin Kamara, while Charbonnet is more of a power back at 6-1, 220.
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WOULD THE DOLPHINS TAKE A RUNNING BACK IN THE DRAFT?
The Dolphins taking a running back in the second round maybe would be surprising. It definitely would be unusual.
The Dolphins haven't taken a running back that early since 2011 when they selected Daniel Thomas from Kansas State, a move that didn't pan out.
Kenyan Drake from Alabama was a third-round pick in 2016, and the Dolphins took a running back in the fourth round in both 2012 (Lamar Miller) and 2018 (Kalen Ballage).
Looking at the Dolphins roster at the end of the 2022 season, the four running backs included a seventh-round pick (Myles Gaskin) and three players who entered the NFL as rookie free agents (Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson Jr. and Salvon Ahmed).
Along with all of them being non-premium draft picks, the four have something else in common: They're all scheduled to become free agent March 15.
Mostert, Wilson and Gaskin all are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents, while Ahmed is a pending restricted free agent.
This means the Dolphins very well could find themselves in the market for a running back if one or more of their pending free agents end up leaving.
It would be surprising to see the Dolphins not re-sign at least one of those running backs, with Mostert still looking like the most logical candidate, and it also wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for them to run it back with the same group.
The Dolphins' recent past at running back and what head coach Mike McDaniel had in San Francisco, which until the 49ers traded for Christian McCaffrey also entailed non-premium draft picks at the position, would suggest Mostert and/or Wilson more likely to come back than Gibbs or Charbonnet being selected in the second round.
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