A trade that should be tempting to Dolphins. And more mocks, Grant, Washington

The market-read here is less about one roster and more about how front offices are pricing optionality in a weak QB class. When a team is willing to pay a premium to move four slots for a quarterback with a fifth-year option, the second-round quarterback market gets structurally devalued; that should widen the gap between first-round and second-round QB valuations and make pick-30 a more powerful asset than the raw slot chart implies. For Miami, the more interesting angle is not the trade down itself but the portfolio effect: turning one marginal first into two day-two shots dramatically improves the odds of finding above-replacement starters at positions where the league is still short on cheap talent.

The bigger second-order implication is for teams sitting near the turn who need a quarterback but are not truly set at the position. If Arizona is forced to choose between certainty and economics, teams behind them benefit from the scarcity premium in the first round; if they wait, the entire second round could become a bidding field for the last viable QB. That dynamic is usually underappreciated because the league talks about draft slots, but the real value is contract control years two through five, which matters more than modest difference in average draft position.

The contrarian risk is that this only works if the market believes Simpson is a real differentiator. If the medical/analytics consensus downgrades him, the first-round trade-up demand collapses and Miami loses the ability to monetize pick 30 at an elevated rate. In that case, the optimal strategy flips: stay put and take the best non-QB value, because the implied trade premium would not exist. Time horizon is immediate—this is a draft-night volatility event, not a slow-burn thesis.