MIAMI _ The bye week is a time for NFL teams to evaluate and reflect, and the Miami Dolphins will spend the next couple of days doing that _ in the hope they can find some wins in the season's final 12 games.
And because this is a time for evaluation, it's fair to do that with an area of the franchise that will be at the center of the coming rebuild: The personnel department.
No, there is no draft in the coming weeks. But an evaluation of the front office now in this time of evaluation could offer hints how things will go in future drafts, which is the hope Miami is clinging to as the reason for 2019's demolition and eventual rebuild.
There's hope among fans that Miami's front office, armed with five first-round draft picks the next two seasons, can bring championship football to Miami.
But we all know it's not just about having high picks. It's about making the right picks and then developing those players into stars.
Example:
The most dynamic quarterback in the NFL now is Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes. He was picked with the No. 10 overall selection in 2017 by a Chiefs front office that found itself with the 27th pick of the first round the morning of the draft. But the Chiefs traded No. 27 and a third round pick (No. 191) plus a 2018 first-round selection, to vault 16 teams, including the Dolphins _ several of which needed a quarterback _ to land Mahomes.
The Dolphins that year? They picked defensive end Charles Harris at No. 22 overall.
It wasn't that the Dolphins (and others) did anything wrong by not recognizing Mahomes and his amazing potential. It was just that the Dolphins (and others) did nothing right in not recognizing and then chasing that amazing potential.
(By the way, the argument the Dolphins didn't chase Mahomes because they had Ryan Tannehill as their starter does not work. The Chiefs had Alex Smith, who is like Tannehill except better, and they went after Mahomes.)
Anyway, as the Dolphins continue their work toward their multiple top pick, including perhaps the first pick in the 2020 NFL draft, it makes sense to look at how the personnel department has done in the drafts since 2016.
Because general manager Chris Grier headed every Dolphins draft since 2016. And he'll head the 2020 draft.
And one way to predict the likelihood of future success is to measure past performance. To that end, Miami's last four drafts and their results ...
