Justin Herbert Pro Day complete, shares joke with Dolphins representative, meets with team
Near the end of Justin Herbert’s workout at the University of Oregon Pro Day on Thursday, it became obvious David Lee, a former Miami Dolphins quarterback coach and current quarterback consultant for the club, wanted to see more.
Lee apparently wanted to see Herbert stand at the goal line and throw the football flat-footed down the field to either hashmark. And Lee called Herbert over and asked him to go off his workout script and make those throws.
No problem.
Herbert agreed to take the extra throws and even shared something of a joke with Lee before trotting to the end zone.
Lee then stood at the 50-yard line, expecting a good-but-not-necessarily-amazing static throw. It was then that he was advised to take few steps backward.
And Herbert, standing at the goal line, used only his upper-body torque to fire the ball 61 yards to the hash right in front of Lee. Then he moved over to the other side of the field and again threw with no legwork to the far hash right were Lee had positioned himself — another 62-yard throw.
Amazing.
Justin Herbert has a great arm, folks.
It is one of the most powerful and gifted arms in the draft. And it is an arm perfectly capable of playing in the AFC East as the Dolphins play annual games in Foxboro, Massachusetts., East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Orchard Park, New York, against their division rivals.
So Herbert put an impressive exclamation point on his workout and is now finished with the bulk of his on-field work during the current draft season leading up to the April draft.
Herbert had a good workout. He was off target once on a deep post corner route but showed impressive accuracy the remainder of the workout, particularly on deep throws.
Herbert, who played strictly out of the shotgun for the Ducks, also showed the teams present he has been working on taking snaps under center and displayed the footwork involved with that.
The Dolphins, who have three first-round selections, including No. 5 overall, had multiple representatives at this workout, but that did not include general manager Chris Grier nor head coach Brian Flores.
The Carolina Panthers, with the seventh overall selection, dispatched general manager Marty Hurney to the workout.
But know this: Sometimes interested teams send their highest-ranking decision-makers so as to help make tough decisions.
And sometimes interested teams to play coy and don’t send their top decision-makers so as to hide their interest.
Translation? The Dolphins have done their Herbert homework. They’re interested.
The quarterback confirmed he met privately with team reps before the workout. So Miami not showing up in full force cannot be readily interpreted one way or another.
One more thing:
Most NFL teams continue to have Joe Burrow rated as this draft’s best quarterback. The Dolphins reportedly share that opinion and might try to trade up to get him.
Most teams rate Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa second on the quarterback order and Herbert third. Multiple teams, however, increasingly have Herbert as their second quarterback.
It is unclear whether the Dolphins have Herbert rated second although I’ve reported they like Herbert much more than most people believe.
