Yesterday I mentioned how I am a big believer in the Dolphins doing whatever they need to - assuming the front office and coaching staff comes to a consensus that either Blaine Gabbert or Cam Newton is indeed a franchise quarterback - in order to land their target. In all seriousness, if the Dolphins do get a strong conviction on either of those two guys, then they have got to make it happen.
Say what you want about the Jets, for example. But they felt that Mark Sanchez was a franchise quarterback - so they did what they had to do to move up and land the signal caller in the draft, trading way up to the fifth overall pick to get it done. That's what you call being aggressive.
But I'm a realist. I know that making a bold move like that is against what this regime believes in. And I'm well aware that GM Jeff Ireland is more likely to make a deal to move back in the first round (and reacquire a second round pick) than they are to move up in the first round (giving up additional picks to get the deal done). I do still feel that the Dolphins have got to take a quarterback somewhere in the first two or three rounds.
That brings me to that next "tier" of quarterbacks in this draft. Gabbert and Newton are at the top of the first tier in this class. And just for this exercise, we'll say that Jake Locker and Ryan Mallett are at the bottom of that first tier.
So who makes up that second tier? I can see a number of quarterbacks who one could make an argument for being the best of the rest. That is why this weekend's debate centers around which quarterback you believe is the best of the rest.
Florida State's Christian Ponder, Iowa's Ricky Stanzi, Nevada's Colin Kaepernick, TCU's Andy Dalton, and Alabama's Greg McElroy. Those are the five I would put in that second tier. In what order? I'm not sure yet.
Which of the second-tier quarterbacks would you most want the Dolphins to draft if it came to this in April's NFL Draft?