Another common trend between the Miami Dolphins’ 2026 NFL Draft rookie class has emerged and it is hard to ignore

College starts for each member of the Miami Dolphins’ 2026 NFL Draft rookie class:

• Round 1, pick 12: OT Kadyn Proctor, Alabama: 40 career starts
• Round 1, pick 27: CB Chris Johnson, San Diego State: 23 career starts
• Round 2, pick 43: LB Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech: 32 career starts
• Round 3, pick 75: WR Caleb Douglas, Texas Tech: 34 career starts
• Round 3, pick 87: TE Will Kacmarek, Ohio State: 22 career starts
• Round 3, pick 94: WR Chris Bell, Louisville: 36 career starts
• Round 4, pick 130: EDGE Trey Moore, Texas: 47 career starts
• Round 4, pick 138: LB Kyle Louis, Pittsburgh: 26 career starts
• Round 5, pick 158: S Michael Taaffe, Texas: 37 career starts
• Round 5, pick 177: WR Kevin Coleman Jr., Missouri: 40 career starts
• Round 5, pick 180: TE Seydou Traore, Mississippi State: 37 career starts
• Round 6, pick 200: OG DJ Campbell, Texas: 43 career starts
• Round 7, pick 238: EDGE Max Llewellyn, Iowa: 13 career starts

Miami Dolphins 2026 class mitigates risk with sample sizes

That’s a grand total of 430 career starts in college, folks. THAT’S A LOT OF COLLEGE STARTS! These guys have all played a lot of football. Just four of the thirteen players in the class posted less than 30 career starts, and that includes TE Will Kacmarek, who played in 55 career games between his time at Ohio and Ohio State.

On average, the 13 members of this rookie class have just over 33 starts apiece. If you omit the team’s final selection in Llewellyn, the team’s 12 picks in the top-200 average 34.75 starts apiece.

There’s upside here, as most of these players boast robust ‘Relative Athleticism Scores’ (RAS) to indicate their historical athleticism versus their peers at their positions. But there’s a body of work in college that is significant for (just about) every player in the class. Miami didn’t collect too many high-variance outcome selections. Variance and projection is always part of the game — but the Dolphins appeared to avoid compounding their risk with limited sample sizes in 2026. It’s a trend, for now. Doing it again in 2027 will help us decide if it’s a standard operation under Jon-Eric Sullivan.