Bills Trade Helps The Dolphins
By Brian Miller
If your keeping track at home at what seems like the ever changing landscape of the NFL draft order you by now have penciled in the Buffalo Bills at number 28 and scrapped your previous 40 mock draft compilations. At first glance you may have actually figured, eh, Miami’s pick will still be the same. But will it?
Consider that up until today, the Buffalo Bills were in dire need of defensive help. Today, they need an OT. Their most talented offensive lineman and booku headache is off to Philly and the Bills are left with a hole. A rather large hole. So now that the Bills have two first round picks they can address defense and the offensive line. But there is one small catch. There won’t likely be any OT’s worth the 28 spot when they pick. Yep, looks like they have to take one at number 11.
If you look at our own “mock draft poll” (scroll for the Patriots) the Bills selected DE/OLB Aaron Maybin if the Bills decide to skip the defensive side of the ball with that 11th pick and draft an OT like Andre’ Smith or Michael Oher then teams following the Bills will likely have to reach on an OT like Britton. It’s a domino affect.
Teams looking to add an OT like the Redskins, Vikings, and Lions are now wondering if their multiple choice at the position will be a solo. The Bills possibly just took one first round OT off the market earlier than most predicted. Washington…looks like it might be Oher instead of Smith and Detroit may be left looking at Britton.
The second part of that equation is the fact that now another defense-man is on the board. In our mock, the Broncos took LB Brian Cushing but they also have a need for DE and could forego Cushing for Maybin if he is there should Buffalo opt for the OT route. Cushing then falls, Clay Mathews falls, Rey Maualuga falls and so on.
While nothing guarantees the Dolphins a shot at one of the top LB’s or DE’s in this years draft it does improve their chances of either trading down with a team that needs an OT should one still be floating at 25 or a team needing that guy who slides a bit, or they just might find themselves staring at a name on the board they weren’t expecting to be there.
So on paper, for now, we can thank the Bills for two things. One, for getting rid of a pro-bowl OT that will no longer keep our youngsters off Trent Edwards, and two, for possibly allowing an upper draft talent slide just far enough to make an impact on our draft.