Draft Capital
Every pick since 1980 measured against what its draft slot returns league-wide. Scoring counts a player's whole career, so the question is whether the front office found a good player — how much of that career stayed in Miami is tracked separately.
Draft value over expectation by era
Average career value per pick versus what that draft slot returns league-wide. Above zero means the front office beat the board.
How much of it stayed in Miami
Share of the career value an era's picks produced that came in a Dolphins uniform. Drafting well and keeping the player are two different things, and the gap between these numbers and the chart above is where several eras lost the plot.
- Bridge Years1975–8287%1 got away
- Marino Era1983–9565%13 got away
- Jimmy Johnson Years1996–9978%1 got away
- Wilderness2000–0763%3 got away
- Searching for Stability2008–1560%8 got away
- Chasing January2016–2168%5 got away
Best picks
Most value above what the slot usually returns.
- Dan Marino1983 · R1 P27 · QB+109.2
- Zach Thomas1996 · R5 P154 · LB+105.2
- Jason Taylor1997 · R3 P73 · DE+97.5
- Mark Clayton1983 · R8 P223 · WR+71.7
- Anthony Carter1983 · R12 P334 · WR100% elsewhere+57.9
- Sam Madison1997 · R2 P44 · DB+57.2
- Richmond Webb1990 · R1 P9 · T+54.5
- Bryan Cox1991 · R5 P113 · LB+53.5
Worst picks
Least value returned for the slot spent.
- David Overstreet1981 · R1 P13 · RB-41.6
- Dion Jordan2013 · R1 P3 · DE-41.5
- Yatil Green1997 · R1 P15 · WR-41.3
- Eric Kumerow1988 · R1 P16 · DE-38.4
- Sammie Smith1989 · R1 P9 · RB-34.5
- John Bosa1987 · R1 P16 · DE-32.4
- John Avery1998 · R1 P29 · RB-30.8
- Billy Milner1995 · R1 P25 · T-29.9
Careers built somewhere else
Picks the front office got right and then let go. These score well above expectation — the evaluation was sound — but most of the football happened after Miami.
- Troy Vincent1992 · R1 P7 · DB90 career AV, 14 here84% elsewhere
- Anthony Carter1983 · R12 P334 · WR61 career AV, 0 here100% elsewhere
- Chris Gray1993 · R5 P132 · G64 career AV, 8 here88% elsewhere
- Minkah Fitzpatrick2018 · R1 P11 · S61 career AV, 7 here89% elsewhere
- Marco Coleman1992 · R1 P12 · DE72 career AV, 22 here69% elsewhere
- Laremy Tunsil2016 · R1 P13 · T60 career AV, 12 here80% elsewhere
- Scott Mitchell1990 · R4 P93 · QB49 career AV, 6 here88% elsewhere
- Ted Ginn Jr.2007 · R1 P9 · WR52 career AV, 15 here71% elsewhere
Every pick
| 1980 | R1 · 21 | Don McNeal | DB | 30 | 30 | 38.6 | -8.6 | — |
| 1980 | R2 · 48 | Dwight StephensonHOF | C | 80 | 80 | 27.1 | +52.9 | 5 |
| 1980 | R3 · 75 | Bill Barnett | DE | 12 | 12 | 20.0 | -8.0 | — |
| 1980 | R4 · 100 | Elmer Bailey | WR | 1 | 1 | 15.8 | -14.8 | — |
| 1980 | R6 · 158 | Eugene Byrd | WR | 0 | 0 | 9.5 | -9.5 | — |
| 1980 | R7 · 185 | Joe Rose | TE | 15 | 15 | 7.7 | +7.3 | — |
| 1980 | R8 · 212 | Jeff Allen | DB | 6 | 1(17% kept) | 7.3 | -1.3 | — |
| 1980 | R8 · 214 | David Woodley | QB | 34 | 26(76% kept) | 7.1 | +26.9 | — |
| 1980 | R9 · 239 | Mark Goodspeed | T | 0 | 0 | 5.5 | -5.5 | — |
| 1980 | R10 · 271 | Doug Lantz | C | 0 | 0 | 4.8 | -4.8 | — |
| 1980 | R10 · 272 | Ben Long | LB | 0 | 0 | 4.8 | -4.8 | — |
| 1980 | R11 · 279 | Phil Driscoll | DE | 0 | 0 | 4.7 | -4.7 | — |
| 1980 | R12 · 325 | Chuck Stone | G | 0 | 0 | 2.9 | -2.9 | — |
| 1981 | R1 · 13 | David Overstreet | RB | 4 | 4 | 45.6 | -41.6 | — |
| 1981 | R2 · 56 | Andra Franklin | RB | 18 | 18 | 24.5 | -6.5 | 1 |
| 1981 | R4 · 84 | Sam Greene | WR | 0 | 0 | 17.9 | -17.9 | — |
| 1981 | R4 · 96 | Brad Wright | QB | 0 | 0 | 15.9 | -15.9 | — |
| 1981 | R5 · 126 | Ken Poole | DE | 1 | 1 | 12.1 | -11.1 | — |
| 1981 | R5 · 138 | Tommy Vigorito | RB | 11 | 11 | 11.2 | -0.2 | — |
| 1981 | R6 · 152 | Mack Moore | DE | 2 | 2 | 9.9 | -7.9 | — |
| 1981 | R6 · 154 | Fulton Walker | DB | 5 | 4(80% kept) | 9.8 | -4.8 | — |
| 1981 | R7 · 179 | Mike Daum | T | 0 | 0 | 7.7 | -7.7 | — |
| 1981 | R8 · 208 | William Judson | DB | 37 | 37 | 7.5 | +29.6 | — |
| 1981 | R9 · 235 | John Noonan | WR | 0 | 0 | 5.6 | -5.6 | — |
| 1981 | R10 · 261 | Steve Folsom | TE | 3 | 0(0% kept) | 4.9 | -1.9 | — |
Methodology
Each pick is scored with Approximate Value, a single-number career estimate. Expected value is the league-wide average produced from that draft slot, smoothed across neighbouring picks, so a pick is judged against what every other team got from the same position on the board rather than against a fixed trade chart.
Scoring counts a whole career, wherever it happened, because the question a draft grade should answer is whether the front office identified a good football player. Drafting well and then losing the player is a real failure, but it is a different one, and burying it inside the draft grade hides both.
So retention is tracked on its own. Every pick shows how much of its career value stayed in Miami, and the ones who built their careers after leaving are called out directly — Troy Vincent earned 84% of his value elsewhere, Minkah Fitzpatrick 89%, and Anthony Carter, taken in the 12th round in 1983, all of it without ever playing a down for the Dolphins.
Classes from 2022 on are shown but not scored. A recent pick has not had a career yet, and grading one against a full-career baseline would just penalise it for being new — 397 of 433 picks are mature enough to judge.
Source: nflverse draft data (Pro Football Reference Approximate Value). Draft records begin in 1980, so the 1966–1979 classes are not covered.