3 things Mike McDaniel must improve on for next season

The NFL draft is a pretty obvious area to upgrade the team that Mike McDaniel needs to utilize more.

If you want to go ahead and say that the reason that Mike McDaniel didn’t fully trust any of the 2022 draft picks that the Dolphins brought in was because his first pick last year was in the 4th round, go for it. If you want to say that undrafted rookie Kader Kohou was solid and actually played, I can’t argue it.

But my point is that McDaniel is going to have to embrace the draft to get better especially when the Dolphins are going to be paying the top of their roster for the next few years all while having to, hopefully, try and keep some of the homegrown guys such as Waddle, Jaelan Phillips, Christian Wilkins, Jevon Holland, maybe Tua. The Dolphins simply won’t have as much money as they have had the last few off-seasons.

So, they need to be thorough in their draft picks. Erik Ezukanma was active for like one game this season. Cameron Goode was a practice squad guy. Only Skylar Thompson was asked to play and it had nothing to do because with his talent.

Here are the picks the Dolphins have, currently, in the 2023 NFL Draft.

No 1st round picks but there is enough room there to make an impact even on next year’s team. Obviously, it’s easier said than done, but the team, desperately, needs help on the offensive line and at cornerback. The 2nd and 3rd round picks are decent areas to try and shore up a few of those spots.

I understand that Chris Grier has, potentially, the biggest say on who the Dolphins take in the draft. But let’s not act like McDaniel has no influence on who Grier looks at.

McDaniel can’t treat the draft like going to the DMV as just something you have to do. With where the Dolphins are in terms of cap space, and yes I’ve said in the past the cap is fake but eventually, it sort of comes into play when you have so many high-priced guys(see the Rams), hitting on one or two starters in this year’s draft is kind of important.