Talking Trades, Tyreek, DeVante and 2023 Picks

After joking that he and his staff might spend the first round of the 2022 NFL draft watching Tyreek Hill highlights, Miami Dolphins GM Chris Grier made clear that giving up the team's first two picks wasn't going to become standard practice.

Grier has said since he became Dolphins general manager in 2016 that he believes in building through the draft and his stance hasn't changed, even after the blockbuster Hill trade produced Internet memes with Grier and the now-famous "F--- them picks" stolen from the Rams.

“My kids have told me there’s been a lot of memes about me — both good and bad," Grier said during his annual pre-draft press conference Wednesday. "I think Les (Rams GM Les Snead) deserves credit for how they’ve done it, they won a Super Bowl. I’ve known Les for a long time and he has a very unique way of looking at things and it’s paid off.

"I still believe in building through the draft, I think the draft is an important way of building your team and having young assets to work through. But we’ve shown that we will always be aggressive if it comes to acquiring a good player — or at least attempting to, and we’ve done that."

Dolphins Well Set Up for 2023 Draft

The Dolphins acquired Hill from the Kansas City Chiefs, for Dolphins fans who have been away, in exchange for first-, second- and fourth-round picks in 2022 along with fourth- and sixth-round selections in 2023.

The Dolphins didn't touch their reserve of premium 2023 picks, on the contrary adding to it in the DeVante Parker trade.

A little more than a week away from the 2022 draft, the Dolphins have five picks in the first three rounds of 2023 — two in the first, one in the second and two in the third.

"I would say that for us, the ability to get good players, as young as we are on this roster right now, knowing that we have the two first-round picks in 2023, enabled us to be aggressive and make a move like that," Grier said. "And we had talked to a number of teams about a number of players, so we were being very aggressive across the league trying to find players. Tyreek was not one I ever thought would happen, a lot of credit to (Chiefs GM) Brett Veach and Coach (Andy) Reid — working with them was great. I’m sure they were frustrated with us at times and we were frustrated with them, but it ended up working out well.”

Grier said the decision to acquire Hill was by no means a reflection of the 2022 draft, for which the Dolphins now have only four picks.

The Dolphins were at five picks before they made the Parker trade, which cost them a fifth-round pick this year but brought them a third-round selection next year.

The Hill trade was the headliner, though, and being able to pull it off without having to sacrifice anything but Day 3 picks next year was big for Grier.

“Yeah, not going to lie, it was important to us to keep those two (first-round) picks because we had done so much to acquire those before," Grier said. "I think, for us, when you make a move for Tyreek like that, you also want to be prepared to have picks for the future. And having those two picks and picking up the pick for DeVante, another third gives us five picks in the first three rounds. We feel good about that heading into next year and 2023.”