When the 2024 NFL season started for the Miami Dolphins, no one was expecting them to be picking in the top 10 of the 2025 NFL Draft. Quite the opposite, in fact. A season after fielding one of the best offenses in the league, but collapsing at the end of the season, the Dolphins had lofty expectations. However, those expectations came crashing down quickly once the season actually started.
Miami got off to a sluggish start in 2024, falling behind early in their opening game against the Jacksonville Jaguars before waking up on offense and getting a come-from-behind victory in Week 1. Then disaster struck in Week 2, as quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered his third diagnosed concussion of his professional career and was placed on injured reserve while he recovers.
The Dolphins have dropped two straight games heading into Monday night’s tilt against the Tennessee Titans. They still don’t have much clarity on Tagovailoa’s situation or a timetable for his return. The rumor mill won’t quiet down about the Dolphins bringing in another quarterback, despite both the team and Tagovailoa insisting the quarterback will be back at some point.
Just when Tagovailoa comes back will determine where the Dolphins are picking in the 2025 NFL Draft. If he doesn’t come back soon, the Dolphins could indeed have a top 10 pick, as the latest top 10 draft projection from Bleacher Report’s NFL Draft analyst Brent Sobleski predicts.
Sobleski has the Dolphins picking 9th in the 2025 NFL Draft, and has the Dolphins selecting Georgia safety Malaki Starks with that pick. Sobleski does point out that the uncertainty with Tagovailoa’s situation could dramatically alter the Dolphins’ draft plans, but assuming he comes back, quarterback doesn’t take precedence with this pick.
Instead, Sobleski has the Dolphins getting a potential game-changer in the defensive secondary. Starks may seem like a luxury pick at safety, but he’s arguably the most talented safety available in the NFL Draft since Jamal Adams in 2017 – who went sixth overall. The Dolphins potentially have a substantial need at the position, too, with both Jevon Holland and Jordan Poyer currently playing on the last year of their contracts.
Sobleski views Starks as a player who can be a playmaker at all three levels of the defense – unlike Adams whose value was predicated on being a “tone-setter” as Sobleski puts it. Starks, on the other hand, is just as good in coverage as he is up towards the line of scrimmage, providing the Dolphins with a “fluid coverage option capable of playing at all three levels”
Assuming Tagovailoa gets healthy and returns to the team, the offense is still set at quarterback, with Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, and a duo of Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane rounding out the offense at the skill positions. Fans of the team are likely throwing their hands up in the air at the Dolphins not taking an offensive lineman here, but the team has made it clear throughout the years that they don’t value the position that highly. And that they don’t view the line as as much of a problem as fans do.
