There’s been some discussion today about which of the draft’s best tackles the Dolphins like the most, which makes it no surprise that General Manager Jeff Ireland spent some time talking about the possibility of drafting a blocker at a press conference Thursday.
Ireland predictably offered little specific about what the team was thinking about doing with the 12th overall pick in the draft. Ireland did say that he had no problem using a high pick on an offensive lineman after doing so several times in the past and said that the team was generally interested in adding to their options on the offensive line.
“We’re going to try to upgrade the offensive line as a whole,” Ireland said.
Tackle remains one of the most obvious needs for the Dolphins so there’s sure to be plenty of speculation about them taking one early in the draft. With 11 picks (five in the first three rounds) at his disposal, Ireland’s got the ammunition to deal up for a player he likes. He acknowledged as much, saying clout like this doesn’t come around very often and suggested the team would be willing to use that clout if they saw players they liked coming off the board ahead of their picks.
The Dolphins were aggressive about using their cap space to grab players they wanted in free agency. With so much to work with, we’d expect to see the same from them come the draft.