2020 NFL Draft Sneak Preview

While the immediate focus will shift to free agency with the start of the new league year March 18, draft talk will only continue to escalate.

- Alain Poupart

There’s already been a ton of speculation as to what the Dolphins might do with their three first round picks in the 2020 draft.

And there seems to be a strong consensus that the Dolphins will be selecting Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (pronounced tongue-uh-vai-LO-uh, per the NFL). They’ll be taking him with the fifth overall pick or they’ll be trading up to get him, if you believe the countless analysts putting together mock drafts.

Most of the predictions involving a trade have the Dolphins dealing with the Detroit Lions to move up from fifth overall in the first round to third, though there was at least one mock that had the Dolphins moving up to No. 2 with a deal with the Washington Redskins.

The benefit of making a trade with the Lions would be some sort of insurance that the Dolphins can get Tagovailoa after the expected top two selections of Joe Burrow by the Cincinnati Bengals and Chase Young by the Redskins.

The downside is having to give up some of the assets the Dolphins accumulated over the past year — all at the cost of a difficult 2019 season.

What could the Dolphins expect to have to pay to make that jump from 5 to 3?

Maybe the best way to get an idea is to study the recent past, specifically the 2018 draft when the New York Jets moved up from No. 6 to No. 3 by giving the Indianapolis Colts three second-round picks — two in 2018 and one in 2019.