Nick Belotto’s latest mock fills the obvious holes on the Miami Dolphins roster
By Nick Belotto
Round 1 Pick 18: Gregory Rousseau, Edge Rusher, Miami
This is a very different pick than my first mock, which had Rousseau going in the first half of the first round.
There was a lot of temptation to take Najee Harris here. Miami desperately needs a running back who can compliment Myles Gaskin’s skill set and Harris is that guy. But, with a quality edge rusher on the board and the chances of taking a running back in the second round very high, I decided to pull the trigger on Rousseau.
Rousseau opted out of the 2020 season because of Covid-19, but put up dominant numbers and play in 2019 that had him billed as an early first-rounder. Rousseau had 15.5 sacks in 2019, which was a huge number for a guy who was playing in his first year (stats courtesy of ESPN.com)
The biggest knock on Rousseau is that he hasn’t played enough football to garner that first-round attention. He only played a full season in 2019 and hasn’t had enough time to work on his technique on the field in meaningful games.
That being said, he is an athletic pass rusher who is the perfect type of guy for Brian Flores. Flores could take him and put him at outside linebacker and he could become an instant compliment to Emmanuel Ogbah and Andrew Van Ginkel coming off the edge.