The Dolphin
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- Mar 19, 2019
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In the days before the NFL draft, rumors mounted that the Dolphins were planning to trade up to the third overall pick and draft an offensive tackle. Like so many other pre-draft rumors, that one turned out to be bogus: The Dolphins didn’t trade up, and when they selected at No. 5, they took the player everyone’s been linking them to for months, Tua Tagovailoa.
Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco was interested in those rumors because his team was picking one spot behind the Dolphins. But Telesco never believed a word he heard about the Dolphins taking a tackle.
“Every rumor I heard, I went through my head of how would we handle this if this happened,” Telesco told Pat McAfee. “Now, the whole, Miami taking a tackle at 3, maybe they really were, I just didn’t believe that one.”
Telesco confirmed that the Chargers were set on taking a quarterback, and if it hadn’t been Justin Herbert, it would have been Tagovailoa or Joe Burrow, whoever fell to them.
“We felt great about all three quarterbacks who went in the Top 6,” Telesco said. “If you’re going to pick this high and there’s a potential franchise quarterback, you have to take him.”
As long as the rumor mill didn’t have all three quarterbacks gone in the first five picks, Telesco wasn’t going to sweat the pre-draft rumors. He wanted a quarterback and he got one.