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The Bengals sealed their fate with the first overall pick when their miraculous comeback attempt to the Dolphins in Week 16 fell short. The Bengals ultimately won a pointless game the next week to finish 2-14. Meanwhile, the Dolphins overachieved with a record of 5-11, which earned them the fifth overall pick.
It turns out Miami may have been happier if they weren’t as competitive in 2019. It turns out that the Dolphins have tried on multiple occasions to trade with the Bengals for the first overall selection for the chance to draft LSU Joe Burrow (or maybe an offensive tackle if you believe every rumor out there).
Over the last couple of weeks, the Dolphins called the Bengals on more than one occasion to see if Cincinatti would be willing to trade the No. 1 overall pick. The Dolphins were told, in no uncertain terms, no. Cincinnati would not trade the pick and would stay put at No. 1.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 23, 2020
This isn’t exactly shocking news. The Dolphins are an extremely quarterback needy team, and they are armed with five picks in the first two rounds. What did they offer, and what was Cincinnati’s price for the first overall pick (if it wasn’t priceless) are really the missing piece to this story.
Zac Taylor already mentioned earlier that a team coming to them making an insane offer really would just affirm what the team thought of the player. The Dolphins general manager and head coach also have been rumored to be against whatever price tag was out there.
There have been some grumbles from a portion of the fans to make a trade involving the Dolphins three first round picks, and then have the team hopefully draft a quarterback next season or later in the draft.
The main argument against that line of thinking is what we are talking about with Cincinnati and Miami right now. You can’t always be certain there won’t be a team in front of you that will be willing to give up the opportunity to draft whatever quarterback you covet. If you are sitting in a position to draft a player that you feel can change your franchise, it is just impossible to pass up sometimes.
This rumor also is conveniently timed on the day of the draft itself. Follow me to the speculation corner where we can assume this is probably the Dolphins putting it out there on the record that they tried to draft Burrow. It could also just be the Bengals trying to send a not so subtle hint to stop bothering them. They already have enough to deal with trying to get Mike Brown off the potato background on Zoom.
Bengals are drafting Burrow tonight. Make plans accordingly.