What to Make of Eye-Opening Mock Draft Prediction for Dolphins

With the Miami Dolphins sitting at 1-5 and being road underdogs against a lowly Cleveland Browns team, it’s hard not to start looking ahead to the offseason.

Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing. ESPN NFL draft analyst Jordan Reid released a 2026 mock draft Wednesday, and he had the Dolphins making an interesting selection.

The Dolphins currently have the fifth pick in the draft (technically tied with New Orleans for fifth or sixth pick based on strength of schedule through Week 6), but a lot will change between now and April. Heck, the Dolphins might be undergoing a full-blown rebuild at that point.

However, Reid’s selection is an interesting one regardless of the time of year. He has the Dolphins selecting Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and passing on players at offensive tackle and quarterback.

What do we think of this selection?

The Argument for Dolphins Drafting Caleb Downs

The most important thing to establish about Downs is that his talent is absolutely worthy of a top five overall selection.

He’s a three-year starter and has played on multiple elite Ohio State defenses after spending his first season at Alabama. In three seasons, he’s posted five interceptions, nine pass breakups, and an NFL passer rating allowed of 70.6, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Ohio State product also possesses elite versatility, a must for modern-day safeties. In 2025, Downs has taken 109 snaps in the box, 124 at free safety, and 58 at slot cornerback.

On tape, Downs shows excellent range, ball skills, toughness, and perhaps his most impressive trait — football intelligence. He reads route concepts and quarterbacks so well that it feels like he teleports across the field at times.

I started covering the draft in 2018, and Downs has a chance to be my highest-graded safety prospect ever. His competition will be current Dolphins safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and Ravens star safety Kyle Hamilton.

Even if Downs falls short of those players on my board, that’s the stratosphere we’re talking about.

For the Dolphins, a prospect like Downs is appealing in a few scenarios. The first is that the team tries, in some form, to continue competing without a full teardown after the season. The second is if a new regime comes in and doesn’t feel ready to make a change at quarterback.

The latter strategy is something we’ve seen some teams do in Year 1 of a rebuild. They’ll take the best player available and try to build the roster's foundation before dropping a young QB into the environment.

The other important note is that Miami’s secondary is terrible. We would argue there isn’t a single good, long-term piece on the depth chart. Fitzpatrick is good, but he’s getting older, and his play has already declined a bit.

Ashtyn Davis, Ifeatu Melifonwu, and the entire cornerback room all feel highly replaceable. Obviously, some will need to stick around, but none of them feel like reliable long-term starters.

The Argument Against the Dolphins Drafting Caleb Downs

The argument for passing on a player like Downs is centered around positional value. Safety is not considered an overly valuable position, and it often leads to talented players falling a bit in the draft.

Fitzpatrick went 11th, Hamilton went 14th, Antonie Winfield Jr. went 45th, and Brian Branch also went 45th. Pretty much every draft analyst had Fitzpatrick and Hamilton as top-five players, and Winfield and Branch as first-round picks.

Safeties tend to fall, even if they’re incredibly talented football players. So, it might be a hard pill to swallow to see the Dolphins select one fifth overall.

Plus, the Dolphins likely will have plenty of needs at premium positions. Right tackle and edge rusher feel like good places to start, and a potential new regime would likely consider moving on from Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback.

If the right player at one of those positions is on the board, taking a safety would be tough to justify from a value perspective.

Ultimately, it’s a bit early to give a verdict on this hypothetical. There’s a lot of football left; however, if the Dolphins end up with a top-five selection, the question of BPA vs. positional value is one they’ll need to consider heavily, and no player in the 2026 class represents that more than Downs.

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