The Jordan Love love is in full effect in Indianapolis.
And here’s a little secret: It’s shared in Davie, too.
We reported last month that Dan Marino was particularly impressed with Love’s meeting with the Dolphins at the Senior Bowl.
That infatuation has only grown in the weeks since.
He’s absolutely an option for Miami in Round 1.
But if the Dolphins think they will be fine with passing on QB at 5 and targeting Love at 18, they’re sorely mistaken.
Rather, ESPN’s Todd McShay is so confident that Love will be the third quarterback taken — behind Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa but ahead of Justin Herbert — that he bet colleague Mel Kiper Jr. $5,000 for charity on live TV.
“He’s the most underrated quarterback in this year’s class,” McShay said. “He will be the third quarterback taken ahead of Justin Herbert.”
The Dolphins are probably going to be the team that decides that bet.
There’s a growing belief within the organization that some team — most likely the Chargers from 6 or Panthers from 7 — will leap them to take Tagovailoa on draft night.
But they might be OK with that.
Many expect the Dolphins, with the most draft capital of any team, to swing a deal with the Lions to take a quarterback at 3.
But our sense after conversations at this week’s Scouting Combine is that the Dolphins worked hard to build all that capital, and don’t want to part with it if at all possible.
They have many needs beyond quarterback and have done extensive work on first-round running backs, offensive tackles, linebackers and cornerbacks.
They would have surely listened if the Bengals elected to shop the No. 1 pick, but Burrow all but eliminated that possibility this week when he pledged to play for any team that drafts him.
So barring a series of trade-ups — or something crazy happening like the Redskins taking a quarterback at 2 — the Dolphins will probably have their choice of Herbert and Love at 5.
And while Herbert for now seems to have the edge, don’t totally discount them taking the latter.
“Jordan Love has a higher ceiling,” NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said on CBS Sports Radio this week. “He’s the one who’s not ready to play right now. He needs to be developed a little bit more. But he has more of that playmaker gene to him — play off-script, make things happen. It’s not how it’s always drawn up on the play card. You’ve got to be able adjust and react and make plays, and I think that’s where Jordan Love has an advantage of someone like Herbert, but he’s not going to be able to play right away.”
Love would have been a slam-dunk top-10 pick if he played as a junior like he did as a sophomore. But went from a 32-touchdown, six- interception guy to a 20-touchdown, 17-interception guy at Utah State. Part of those struggles were due to changes around him. But Love acknowledged this week that he needs to play better than he did in 2019.
“The biggest difference for me was obviously the turnovers, they went up,” Love said. “I was trying to do too much and force the ball downfield. Thinking I could make throws into tight windows. There were situations where I could have checked the ball down, but I was trying to make that play.”
He added: “I’m going to be me, and they’re going to see that in the interviews. The biggest question is the down year I had coming off my junior season. I have to let them know I felt that.”
As for Love’s measureables, they are off the chart. He’s 6-foot-4, 224 pounds with 10 1/2-inch hands. He ran a 4.74-second 40 Thursday (seventh-fastest among all quarterbacks), with a 35.5-inch vertical leap (tied with Herbert for second).
But his biggest test came during his throwing session.
Love had some impressive moments, particularly when throwing deep, although NFL Network’s Kurt Warner called it an “up-and-down” performance.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 9:54 AM.
