Trading DOWN in the 2011 Draft ?

A LOT of Dolphin fans (including myself) believe that Miami should TRADE DOWN in order to reacquire a 2nd round pick, lost in the Brandon Marshall trade last year.  With offensive needs alone at RB, G/T, QB,  speed WR, trading down makes a lot of sense.  But just how will the Miami dolphins trade down in the 2011 draft ?

In my opinion, it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, for 2 reasons.

First – you need to find a trading partner, usually one with multiple second round picks, because most teams don’t want to trade up so badly they are willing to go without a second round pick.

Second, there needs to be a player at your pick (#15) that another team covets.

Looking at teams with multiple picks – New England has in round #1 (picks 17 , 28) round 2 (picks 33, 60) round 3 (picks  74, 92)… New England picks only 2 spots below Miami in round one, so WHY would they trade up 2 spots ?  Face it everyone New England won’t be calling Miami, and they are set up to have a HUGE draft.

Denver has picks 26, 46 in the second round – remember this is OUR pick from the Marshall trade.  Why would they want to trade this back to us ?  Denver ALREADY  picks #2 overall, so they will get their top priority player/position filled with a fantastic player…Would YOU want to trade back into the 1st round at #15 – or wait for best player available with your 2 picks in round 2 ? Easy decision to me.

San Diego has second round picks 50,61 – this might be our ONLY chance to trade down.  We traded with them last year so they could get RB Ryan Mathews – would they move up again ?

ANSWER NO….. They already pick #18 – RIGHT BEHIND US in round one. Last year they were at the bottom of the round, and needed to move way up to get the RB – how valuable is it to move up ONE SPOT !

Lastly – what player is so valuable at #15 that a team would move up to get ?  Unless a big name player "falls" to Miami’s spot most of the middle of round one players will not motivate a team to move up in the draft to #15 spot.   The top 10 players are really talented in this draft, and there is some impressive depth at OT, DE and DT making it more likely those teams needing this help just take BPA at their pick. 

Parcells incessant drafting of DL (Merling,  Langford, Odrick) is hurting us this year – a lot !  This SHOULD BE THE YEAR that we go DE/DT (based on talent available) Really I understood the Langford pick in round 3 2008 – I hated the Merling pick (#33 overall)  in round 2 2008, and I disliked the Odrick pick last year because we were already stacked at DL. If anything we needed a true NT last year, or some WR SPEED !

Miami really needs to make a trade (like getting RID of Phillip Merling ) to try and move back into the second round.. . this FA period is really hurting Miami’s chances to improve before the draft.

In the end, If Miami stays at #15 Mark Ingram may just be the BPA fitting our most pressing need.

I am still in favor of taking QB Mallett over Ingram personally – but we would need to trade down to make this work…. And I do not think we will find a trading partner.