Lamar Miller was a total steal in the draft

His run at the 15 seconds mark is just awesome.

 

I'll bet I've watched that video close to 20 times now. I love that pick. Miller looks great. His instincts and burst are impressive. I hope he can do it against NFL defenses.

 

Didn't Steve Ross recently reveal that they had a 1st round grade on Lamar Miller?

In my Draft reviews I speculated that they probably had a very high grade on Miller, if you read between the lines, and I speculated as high as a 2nd rounder. But a 1st rounder? Jeez. No wonder Ireland said that if you go purely off their board they "hit it out of the park" or whatever. I'm pretty sure they had Jon Martin rated a 1st rounder, and pretty sure they had Olivier Vernon rated a 2nd rounder. So purely from the standpoint of their draft board, they got three 1st rounders and a 2nd rounder.

 

Well if those were the Phins actual grades then the draft just became very comical to me. Lol.

 

No doubt he was first round material.

 

Why?

 

There's no way I would have had Lamar Miller a 1st rounder. He wasn't interesting value to me until he made it to the 3rd round.

I thought the second round for Jon Martin was probably more appropriate than the 1st round, and I thought the 3rd round seemed appropriate for Olivier Vernon and Michael Egnew. I thought the 5th round would've been much more appropriate for Kheeston Randall and Rishard Matthews than the 7th round, and didn't think B.J. Cunningham would get drafted at all.

So while I like this Draft from Jeff Ireland and crew, I think they're getting away from themselves talking up all these 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounders we managed to collect in one Draft.

 

I don't think it was a bad draft at all. It's just the grades on some of the players selected seem a bit high IMO. That being said, I'm happy with the results so if that is what it takes to have a solid draft keep on grading that high.

 

Basically this.

 

He looks like a Portis, or McGahee clone !!!! Extremely quick & slippery with deceptive power & balance. Consider Slaton's ticket punched........ #23 is yours if you want it Lamar !!! Future Fan favorite.

 

Personally, I had Martin as a borderline 1st/2nd rounder and Miller as a late 2nd rounder. I thought Egnew was a 3rd round guy and Vernon was anywhere from a 3rd - 5th rounder. I had Matthews as a 4th or 5th rounder in this draft (but feel that he would be a 3rd rounder in most drafts). I had Randall as a 5th round guy and BJ as a 7th round guy or UDFA. And I had a high first round grade on Tannehill.

 

I didn't have grades that high either, but I don't see their grades as laughably unreasonable. There is generally a pretty large variation in grades among the teams. I can see reasonable a evaluator having those grades even if they are higher than mine.

As for the draft, other than BJ every pick was taken higher than where I had them graded. So I generally can't complain too much. The differences are mostly about position priorities. Looking back, I would have preferred either taking Sanu (WR) in the third and hoping Vernon lasted to the 4th or keeping the first three rounds the same and taking Wylie (WR) in the 4th. I would have replaced BJ with Markelle Martin (S) in the 6th as well. But overall, I like the draft.

 

The way the Draft works out, I believe that generally speaking you usually end up taking a guy one round lower than your grade. That's just the mechanics of the Draft.

 

He's only a steal if his produces in the NFL. Looking good in college highlights gets me excited too and I have some high hopes for the kid, but I'll reserve my jubilation until we see what he can do.

 

True. That's certainly the way my draft/grades looked and what I usually see most years. But Miami's draft/grades were probably close to your speculation so I can see why they would feel they killed it.

 

I oppose running backs in the first round just on principle, but I had Miller pegged as a late 1st round pick by a team like the Packers. I tend to agree with the apparent internal Dolphins analysis that he was a major value pick.

 

I like him as a really good value pick as well. However the simple fact of the matter is, he wasn't that compelling to me when the Dolphins' mid-2nd rounder came up, and didn't start to get compelling to me until Miami's 3rd round picks started to come around. When he got to the 4th round, that was when I looked at him and thought, someone is about to get a pretty good steal. That someone just happened to be the Dolphins, this time.

 

That's generally how I feel although there are exceptions based on the talent of the back and what else is available. In Miller's case, I didn't have him as a first rounder, but I could easily see him having a first round grade on at least a few team's boards. I know I considered him as a potential first round pick in one of my mocks.

 

At 2:40 it looks like he was shot out of a cannon.

 

One of the things that worries me is that he's going to demand 1st or 2nd round money based on the premise that he's better than his slotting. I could see him holding out.

 

Then let him hold out. He got picked where he got picked. It doesn't matter what value he places on himself. The NFL disagrees with him hence him lasting till the fourth

 

I had Miller as the 3rd best RB in the draft, as did several professionals. The 2nd or 3rd round seemed to be the right place for him because of the devaluation of the RB position, but he certainly has high round talent.

 

I don't think that's possible anymore with the rookie cap in place. Your options are to take your slotted amount or not sign and wait for next year's draft where you'll be a year removed from football and probably be drafted later. The only negotiations now for the rookies are about incentives and even there, there isn't a huge range.

 

Yeah, that's not going to happen. The new CBA brought with it a rookie wage scale and an official slotting system for rookie contracts.

 

I want to be pleasantly surprised by this whole draft and I will be thrilled if it happens. If this turns out to be a good to great draft it will restore confidence in Ireland and go a long ways toward restoring fan enthusisam. Dolphin fans need something to cheer about and some real contributers and impact players from this crop will certainly give some of that.
You know highlight films are just that and its really hard to judge a players true worth from them, but Lamar Miller could be a steal and I don't think many players will be making arm tackles against him. I tip my glass and hope he is a steal.

 

Where he gets drafted dictates what he gets paid more than ever under the new CBA. The draft slots are now pretty rigid in terms of pay scale. He can think he's worth 1st round money, but with the new CBA what he thinks he's worth has become for the most part irrelevant.

 

The one player that seemingly never gets mentioned with respect to our draft class is Josh Kaddu. Even above, when CK and Raph broke down where they had each player graded, they mentioned every one except Kaddu.

It's splitting hairs, but this was the one pick I really didn't like. Especially with Marvin Jones still on the board. Jones in round 5, and any depth/special teams LB in round 6 would have been a much better combo in my eyes than Kaddu/Cunningham.

All in all though, this is probably the best I have felt about a Fins draft since the 90's.

 

That's a good point. When I finished that post I even stopped and asked myself if I were missing anybody. LOL.

I see Kaddu as a guy that shows some potential. He could surprise and be special, but I don't see the odds of that as particularly higher than many other 5th round LBs. And I agree about Jones as I had a 3rd-4th round grade on him.

 

I didn't necessarily feel this draft was a slam dunk. I just appreciate that they finally had a draft where they weren't taking players that I specifically disliked.

 

How much of the discomfort for some is due to the fact most are viewing the draft from an overall talent/draft ranking rather than what Ireland is more likely doing and assessing based on what he feels are need for the team. I think the approach to the draft is shifting and values may be be changing from universal to more team/GM specific, so picking a player at a slot that universally would be out of place might be right where the team thinks they need that talent. Even value of the picks has changed, just look at all the first round trades this year...

I think a true evaluation wont really be able to be done for a couple of seasons to see what we really have in relation to what the team needs and how it performs. But that is just my thoughts as a fan and not a "guru"

 

He doesn't look like either one to me. He seems more reminiscent to that back out of Auburn that the Skins had back in the 90s who got sucker punched in practice that time by Michael Westbrook. Name escapes me at the moment. Gonna have to look it up. Ahh, there it is...Stephen Davis.

 

I like this pick a lot better then the Thomas pick last year.

 

Miller may be something special, we don't know yet. What we do know is that Miller, Thomas, Bush, et al will be learning a new offense...when we see these guys on the field, then we can speculate how good he may be...

 

What I think about with this is that if we had a 1st round grade on him, we must have REALLY liked Egnew, Vernon and Martin as well. Granted, TE, LT and to a point DE were bigger needs for us than RB, but if you've got a high grade on someone there's only so long before you stopped looking past them.
If they in truth had a first round grade on him, then I'm confident that the first 5 picks were all guys we really wanted, for better or worse

 

Bingo.

People talk about Jeff Ireland "staying true to his board". If that's really the case then evidently Jon Martin, Olivier Vernon and Michael Egnew were also graded 1st rounders.

 

I don't think anyone stays entirely true to their board and I don't think it implies that at all. It implies that although Miller may have been rated highly he may have felt other players could provide more contribution to the team based on positional need. Ireland talks a lot about the board and team needs marrying each other at times. For instance Egnew could have been very high on their board but not quite as high as Miller, however based on a scale of positional need and contribution as part of board evaluation he may have been a better value at the spot.

As I said I don't believe any team or GM sticks exactly to their board without factoring in positional needs at least a bit.

 

IMO, Lamar Miller may not have carried a 1st round grade because of his position, but he carries a 1st round grade in terms of talent. I've watched every game he's played, and if he is healthy I think he's the best back the University of Miami has had since Clinton Portis. There wasn't a ton of playmaking talent around Miller at Miami, and at times teams knew they had to key on him and try and force Jacory Harris to beat them and yet he still broke off chunk yard gain after chunk yard gain. I honestly think his upside is unlimited. He's going to have to learn to be a little more physical and block better, but his physicality improved greatly IMO (until he hurt his shoulder) from year 1 to year 2. He has the frame to take the pounding too. As it stands though, he's a legit home run threat every time he touches the ball and a creative coach can do some exciting things with him and Reggie Bush on the field at the same time.

 

Let's just say this. Lamar was a RSoph. He made plays that guys in their senior years do. Had he stayed at Miami without the shoulder issue he'd have never been a 4th rounder (unless he tore his acl.) I say sit him out all season to get his shoulder rehabbed, maybe limited contact all year and unleash him. You say Clinton Portis, I say he's got more talent than Portis. Only thing lacking from Miller is a spin move. Keeps his legs close to the ground and moves the chains.