As any Dolphins fan can attest, the NFL Draft is simply the scratching off of lottery tickets. with no guarantees whatsoever. The reality is, the further you get from the first overall selection, the harder it is to strike gold. What makes the draft so devilishly captivating is that even having one of the very first picks can blow up spectacularly (hello, Dion Jordan). It's the kind of reward loop that keeps gamblers at the table.
I went into the lab in search of unearthing something that could tilt the tables in the Dolphins' favor, and studied the quandary of the first-round trade-down. I gathered data from all first-round draft pick trades in the 10 drafts between 2014 and 2023 (excluding the two most recent drafts, due to the short time on task of those players).
Then, using the Approximate Value (AV) metric created by Pro Football Reference in a herculean effort to assign a numeric value to each player's individual season, regardless of position, I compiled the total haul of AV for each team from that player's career. The results were surprisingly clear. Here is one example to give a visual representation using the Dolphins' 2021 trade-down with the 49ers.
San Francisco 49ers Receive | Miami Dolphins Receive |
|---|---|
2021 Round 1, Pick 3: QB Trey Lance (6 AV) | 2021 Round 1, Pick 12: EDGE Micah Parsons (73 AV) |
2022 Round 1, Pick 29: OL Cole Strange (16 AV) | |
2022 Round 3, Pick 102: LB Channing Tindall (3 AV) | |
2023 Round 1, Pick 29: DT Bryan Bresee (15 AV) |
By way of the 6–107 AV difference, the Dolphins "won" this trade by a resounding margin. Despite the fact that Parsons and Bresee never played in Miami due to subsequent trades, the evaluation is simply about what the picks wound up being. Also, for those wondering, Trey Lance being a massive bust didn't torpedo this deal; even if the trade-up had been for the only successful first-round QB of 2021, Trevor Lawrence, his career AV of 56 would still pale in comparison to the Dolphins' haul.
Miami Dolphins GM Jon-Eric Sullivan should seriously consider trading down in the 2026 NFL Draft
The record for teams trading down in this 10-year, 60-trade sample was 40–18–2. In other words, roughly 67% of first-round trades saw the team moving down add more value than the team moving up. Taking a step back, it becomes clearer. The more lottery tickets you have, the more likely you are to win something. The data puts it into perspective.
The Dolphins are in the unenviable position of having a lot of needs. An optimist, however, might reframe that as saying they are flexible. Miami doesn't need to add any one specific position in the draft, and if a team is desperate enough to compensate the Dolphins handsomely to move up for a player they like, Jon-Eric Sullivan should take it under consideration.
Sullivan comes from Green Bay, the franchise responsible for making the most draft picks of any team over the last five years, with 52. He has also spoken of his objective of acquiring additional draft picks, rather than trading them away. If anyone is painfully aware of what history shows, it's him.
While he also spoke about his willingness to get aggressive and move up for a player he likes, surrendering extra capital has proven time and time again to be a fool's errand. Rather than make the mistake, Sullivan should take the extra swings at the plate for a team that isn't one player away.
There is a time when a team gets close enough to contention that it can be reasoned for them to go all in. The Dolphins are about as far away from that as a team could be. If a team that fancies itself a contender wants to enrich the Dolphins with some extra draft capital (especially in 2027's ballyhooed class), Miami should be all ears.
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