The Miami Dolphins have been saying all offseason that Ryan Tannehill will be their starting quarterback in 2018 Adam Vinatieri Jersey , and the draft didn’t change that.

Miami still has used a first-round pick on a QB only once since 1984 – and that was Tannehill six years ago. The Dolphins didn’t add a QB with any of their other seven draft choices this week, either.

”As always in the draft, a couple of guys went before we picked,” general manager Chris Grier said Saturday. ”There were some players that we liked, but we weren’t going to reach for any player.”

With no rookie QB, veterans Brock Osweiler and David Fales will compete for the backup role. The job could be vital because Tannehill has suffered two major left knee injuries in the past 18 months and missed all of last season.

He’s expected to be ready for offseason drills, but doubts linger about his durability – and ability. He turns 30 this summer, has a 37-40 record and has never taken a postseason snap.

But the Dolphins are comfortable with their quarterback situation, including Osweiler and Fales as backups, executive vice president of football operations Mike Tannenbaum said.

”They’re young and still have plenty of time to get developed,” he said.

Here are things to know about the positions Miami did upgrade in the draft following a 6-10 season:

STOCKING UP

In less than 24 hours, tight end went from a need to one of the deepest positions.

The Dolphins took Mike Gesicki of Penn State in the second round, the highest pick they’ve used on a tight end since 1974. Then they added Notre Dame tight end Durham Smythe in the fourth round.

”Different chess pieces,” Grier said.

Smythe is considered the better blocker but had only 28 career receptions in college.

RECORD SETTER

New Miami running back Kalen Ballage tied an FBS record with eight touchdowns in a game for Arizona State against Texas Tech in 2016. That must sound especially good to the Dolphins, who totaled four touchdowns rushing all of last season.

Ballage, the Dolphins’ second fourth-round pick Ibraheim Campbell Jersey , provides depth behind starter Kenyan Drake and newly acquired veteran Frank Gore, who turns 35 next month.

In the sixth round, the Dolphins drafted Southern Miss defensive back Cornell Armstrong. They made two seventh-round picks: linebacker Quentin Poling of Ohio and kicker Jason Sanders of New Mexico.

Sanders becomes the front-runner to replace Cody Parkey, who signed with the Chicago Bears.

BIG ENOUGH?

Third-round pick Jerome Baker of Ohio State is an undersized linebacker at 225 pounds, but the Dolphins love his speed and coverage ability. Grier said they weren’t in the market for a 250-pounder to line up on the strong side.

”Some of those are like the way of the dinosaur,” Grier said.

FUTURE MATCHUP

First-round pick Minkah Fitzpatrick , an All-America safety from Alabama, gives Miami a timely boost in the back side of the defense. Two AFC East rivals used the opening round to add a quarterback: The Jets took Southern Cal’s Sam Darnold with the third pick, and the Bills took Wyoming’s Josh Allen with the seventh pick.

Miami took Fitzpatrick in the 11th slot.

”For me he was probably one of the top five or six players in the draft,” Grier said.

BIG SCHOOLS

This was the third draft together for Grier, Tannenbaum and coach Adam Gase, and they continued a trend of choosing only FBS players.

STILL NEED

The Dolphins didn’t draft a defensive tackle to reinforce their rotation after they released five-time Pro Bowl tackle Ndamukong Suh. Jordan Phillips, Davon Godchaux and Vincent Taylor return, and a free agent signing is likely.

”We’re very confident we’ll keep adding depth to that position,” Grier said.

That’s also true elsewhere.

”There will be opportunities to improve,” Tannenbaum said. ”We feel like we’re going in the right direction Randy White Jersey , but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

—

— Joining the most exclusive club in football truly hit home Friday for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2018.

Well, maybe not for the one guy missing, but certainly for Ray Lewis, Randy Moss, Brian Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, Robert Brazile, Jerry Kramer and Bobby Beathard.

While Terrell Owens was in Chattanooga planning his own ceremony , the other seven men who will be inducted into the football shrine Saturday night attended the Gold Jacket Luncheon in Canton. Their takeaway was tinged with awe.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life,” said Lewis, like Moss and Urlacher a Hall of Famer in his first year of eligibility. “There was so much love and respect in that room. I’ve never experienced this level of greatness, this level of respect.”

The luncheon isn’t at all about food and drink. It’s about a kinship, a fraternity of the very best at what they did as athletes.

So when the likes of Joe Greene, Dick Butkus and Willie Lanier told their stories to the three linebackers in this year’s class, Lewis, Urlacher and Brazile were spellbound.

“The stories and the brotherhood http://www.indianapoliscoltsteamonline.com/quincy-wilson-jersey , I didn’t realize what I was getting into,” Urlacher said, shaking his head while smiling. “To hear the stories of what they’d gone through … .”

Of course, Kramer went through more than three decades of waiting to get in. The Packers guard became eligible in 1974 and wound up being voted into the hall as a senior candidate.

Brazile also went the senior route after becoming eligible in 1990. Beathard made it in the contributor’s category and has been retired from NFL team front offices since 2000.

Much of the attention at a news conference Friday was paid to the four youngest men in this class; Dawkins got in on his second try. Each of them was stoked by being part of the luncheon gathering.

And they spoke about the guys they idolized.

“Ronnie Lott is the first guy I wanted to be like, I looked up to that cat for much and modeled my game after him,” said Dawkins, who probably was a harder hitter than Lott, though few defensive backs approached Lott’s coverage skills. “He would challenge his teammates to do more, challenge himself to do more. He was a game changer in a game-changing league.”

Urlacher pointed to Butkus, considered by many the greatest middle linebacker in NFL history, and Mike Singletary, his Hall of Fame predecessors for the Bears. But because Urlacher played safety at New Mexico — and often outran every teammate, regardless of position — his hero, like Dawkins’, was a DB.

“Darren Woodson,” Urlacher said. “I was a safety in college and a huge Cowboys fan and he was the guy I wanted to be like when I grew up.”

Urlacher has an edge on Woodson T.J. Green Jersey , who hasn’t yet made it into the hall.

Moss mentioned being thrilled to chat with former teammate Chris Doleman, who was inducted in 2012.

“These guys set the foundation and we respect these guys who paved the way,” Moss said. “It was great to be in there and hear a lot about it. You walk out of that room and say, ‘I am glad to be part of this fraternity.'”

At the gold jacket celebration Friday night, Owens made the printed program’s bio, and otherwise was a nonentity while the other class of 2018 members received their jackets.

While Owens is part of it because he was elected in February, his distancing himself from the proceedings here — and from his hall peers — didn’t draw much response from 2018 class members. That’s probably fitting, sort of like how an NFL coach won’t talk about players who are holding out, focusing instead on “the guys who are here.”

Nearly 140 Hall of Famers are expected in Canton for Saturday night’s inductions. Lewis wished he could have spoken in depth to all of those who attended the luncheon.

“Listening to some of those stories,” Lewis said, “you think, ‘Each one of you guys had to make your path straight enough so a person like me could follow.’ (It was) me and Dick Butkus face to face. Me and Mean Joe Greene locked. Willie Lanier and me just there in the corner talking.”

Hall of Famers all.

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