Have you realized that the start of the 2026 NFL Draft is a mere two weeks and three days away from today? With all of the mock drafts swirling around the internet as of late, plus every major sports network discussing options for all teams in the National Football League, it would actually be pretty hard to not realize that, I suppose.
Maybe there’s too many mock drafts out there…
Take Bill Barnwell of ESPN’s latest effort, for example. On Monday, the writer released a mock that included trade options
for each pick in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. Of course, we know that a trade at each selection is not going to happen, but why not play with the emotions of every fanbase in the league anyway?
In the mock, Barnwell has the Dolphins acquiring pick #14 from the Baltimore Ravens. Hey, that sounds cool, right? Well, not when you consider what Miami had to give up to acquire that selection in this fictitious scenario. Barnwell had Miami sending third-year pass rusher Chop Robinson and pick #30 to Baltimore for pick #14. Oh, that’s not as fun.
Here’s a snippet of Barnwell’s reasoning:
It was a wildly disappointing sophomore campaign for a player with such promise, and when Jon-Eric Sullivan detailed his pillars for the organization moving forward, the new Miami general manager didn’t include [Chop] Robinson. If the Dolphins don’t see Robinson as a difference-maker in the long term, moving him for meaningful draft capital before that becomes clear would be the logical choice. This trade would value Robinson as the 42nd pick in a typical draft by the Johnson chart, a pick in the upper half of the second round.
Creating another hole in Miami’s roster to move up 16 spots in a first round that doesn’t have many first round grades according to various draft experts doesn’t really strike me as a particularly sound strategy for the Dolphins’ new regime, in my opinion. But, I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be wrong plenty more times, so we’ll just have to see if Miami’s new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan is feeling a bit wacky come April 23rd.
