It has been well-established that Miami Dolphins first-year general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan wants to build his new team with size, or “from the inside out” as he’s said. It’s a message that has been well-received and has resonated with Dolphins faithful. Problem is, that mantra may be tough to follow in the 2026 NFL Draft.

The three deepest positions in this year’s draft are wide receiver, cornerback and edge rusher. Sullivan has stated that the team – especially given the state of its roster at present – will be drafting best player available and not the best player at a particular position.

So, if one is simply crunching the numbers, odds are that the best player available in many cases to the Dolphins will not be an offensive lineman or defensive interior player. The “inside” on both sides looks somewhat lacking compared to most drafts.

HOW THE CLASS SHAKES OUT

Pre-combine and prior to the shuffling that comes with more information, wide receiver and cornerback look like the two options that will be in relative abundance in the first four rounds of the ’26 draft. Thankfully, both are also big areas of need for the Dolphins.

There’s a solid volume of round 1 and 2 potential starters available, and some depth beyond that at wideout. Miami can punt in the first round on WR and still be fine on Day 2.

At cornerback, there is definitely a perceived dropoff after LSU’s Mansoor Delane and Tennessee’s Jerrod McCoy, but there are a ton of corners who can end up making teams and even starting, especially on day 2.

Some of Aqua & Coral Report’s favorites include SDSU’s Chris Johnson, Arizona State’s Keith Abney and Florida’s Devin White, but there are many more. And what’s good for the Sullivan mantra of ‘bigger is better,’ many of the available corners have good size.

AN EXAMPLE

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler has been amongst the best at evaluating players the last few years. A few weeks ago, he put out his Top 100 list as it stands before the combine.

On that list of 100 (which gets you to about the end of the third round most years), Brugler has 35 players who are either receivers (14), cornerbacks (11)  or edge rushers (10).

By comparison, he has 12 offensive linemen (tackle, guard or center) and just eight defensive interiors.

And even considering that to some extent, edge players are part of the defensive front and therefore “the trenches” so to speak, that group has a pretty heavy dropoff at the end of round 2.

WILL A SKILL-PLAYER HEAVY DRAFT MEAN JES STRAYED?

Short answer, no.

Drafting purely on best player available isn’t always the easiest to do, but there is less internal conflict when you have a barren roster like the Dolphins.

If Miami drafts more skill-type positions this year than trench players, it doesn’t make Sullivan untrue to his word or less believable. It will simply mean he is following BPA.

Even in good drafts, it is always best to follow the depth of a position. Miami did it in 2024 when it selected Patrick Paul in the second round, somewhere it would have never been able to had that draft not been absolutely loaded on the offensive line.

On a smaller scale, they did the same thing last year – a draft deep with running backs – when they selected Ollie Gordon II in round 6. Jury is still out on Gordon overall, but the strategy is a sound one that landed a potential contributor in the sixth.

To this point, most everything Sullivan has said and done have been in concert and impressive. If they go a direction this draft that diverges from his path of building the trenches, just know he was likely just getting the best players to this roster possible, regardless of position.

As Sullivan said to Dolphins full administrative staff in a meeting at Hard Rock on January 29^th, there “will be no quick fix.”

It’s the roster and financial situation that he’s been handed that will dictate that. But be fully prepared for the play of building inside-out to be reality over the long term, as Sullivan has made clear by his comments many times and should be considered to be true, regardless of how things play out this April.

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