Smythe a Dolphins survivor. And Miami hosts Fleming, calls potential postdraft signees

Durham Smythe has become the ultimate survivor, the one player on offense who has now bridged three Dolphins regimes.

Not only has Smythe played for three Dolphins head coaches (Adam Gase, Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel), but he’s the only tight end retained from the time that McDaniel took over 15 months ago.

What has been the key to that?

“I’ve said multiple times: The NFL is an adapt-or-die game,” Smythe said on a Zoom session with reporters Tuesday. “..That mentality has helped me get along the last five or six years.”

Earlier this month, the Dolphins rewarded him with a two-year, $7.75 million extension through 2025, with $5.5 million guaranteed.

“A new contract is always exciting, to be shown they value me here in a place I really enjoy living,” he said. “It was always the plan to stick around this long and hopefully a good amount longer.”

There’s a good chance the Dolphins will add a tight end in this week’s NFL Draft, perhaps at picks 51 or 84. But Smythe, 27, said knows very little about the half dozen or so options.

“Early on in my career, I would follow it a little bit,” he said. “Six years in, I have no idea.”

The Dolphins have only three tight ends under contract (Smythe, newcomer Eric Saubert and former Idaho State wide receiver Tanner Conner) and Smythe said “bodies, in general, we’ll obviously have to add to our room in the weeks or months ahead.”

Pro Football Focus rated Smythe 32nd among 73 tight ends last season, even though he was thrown just 20 passes. (He caught 15 of them for 129 yards and a touchdown, his third TD in five seasons.)

PFF rated him ninth among all tight ends as a run blocker.

“What I was good at in college [at Notre Dame], you’re not immediately good at in the NFL,” he said. “It’s taken me four, five years to become comfortable. It takes awhile at this level to replicate what you did in college, especially blocking in line.”

For the first time in his Dolphins career, he won’t have Mike Gesicki as a teammate. They have become very close after Miami drafted Gesicki 42nd overall and Smythe 123rd in 2018. Gesicki signed with New England last month; the one-year deal has a $4.5 million base salary and another $4.5 million in incentives.

“I would tell him it’s no surprise I started more games and hung around longer,” Smythe cracked. “I tell people all the time the Dolphins made a mistake in 2018 taking him in the second and me in the fourth [as opposed to the reverse]. I tell him.”

Smythe has started 56 games for the Dolphins, including 15 last season. Conversely, Gesicki started 31 games, including one last season.

“We still talk every day,” Smythe said. “He makes his trips down here. I’m sure I will make a couple [trips to him]. We’re as close as ever.”

Smythe joked that Gesicki signing with the Patriots “I thought was a direct shot at me. He had 31 other choices and he chose the one to spite me the most. Good for him. We’ll see him twice a year.”

Of the Dolphins’ chances this season, Smythe said: “On paper there’s a lot of talent here. There’s a responsibility to play well and win games.”

THIS AND THAT

Veteran offensive lineman Cameron Fleming, who has started 61 games in a nine-year career, visited with the Dolphins this week. He’s among a select group of veterans the Dolphins have considered signing to supplement Austin Jackson at right tackle.

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said last week that the “expectation” is that Jackson will be the Dolphins’ starting right tackle. Jackson was the team’s starter at the position heading into last season but played in only two games because of ankle injuries.

The Dolphins are expected to add a veteran right tackle eventually, and Fleming remains a possibility.

Fleming started 15 games last season for the Broncos, whose offensive line was coached by Butch Barry, who’s now the Dolphins offensive line coach. Per Pro Football Focus, he played 976 snaps (31st most among NFL offensive tackles) and permitted seven sacks, which tied for seventh-most among tackles.

He played four years for New England, two for Dallas, one for the Giants and the past two for Denver.

Fleming, who also can play left tackle, was a Patriots fourth-round pick out of Stanford in 2014.

▪ The Dolphins have been reaching out to players of interest to them as potential undrafted rookie free agents. Though they’re not permitted to offer contracts yet, they can tell those players that they likely will get calls from the Dolphins if they go undrafted.

Among the potentially undrafted players that the Dolphins have called about: Elon cornerback Cole Coleman, Cal Poly receiver Chris Coleman, Hawaii running back Dedric Parson and Hawaii guard Micah Vanterpool.

Chris Coleman, 5-11, caught 58 passes for 912 yards and five touchdowns last season.

Cole Coleman, the Elon corner, has intriguing athleticism; his 40-yard dash time of 4.37 (from his Pro Day) would have ranked first among cornerbacks at the NFL Combine had he been invited, his vertical of 39’’ sixth and his broad jump of 10-6 fourth.

Vanterpool did not allow a sack last season. His teammate Parson, 5-8, averaged 4.8 yards on 304 college carries and caught 55 passes for 450 yards in two seasons at Hawaii.

▪ ESPN’s Matt Miller did a seven-round mock draft and registered these picks for the Dolphins: Florida guard O’Cyrus Torrence at 51, Texas A&M running back Devon Achane at 84, Oregon defensive end D.J. Johnson at 197 and Virginia Tech safety Chamarri Conner at 238.

Torrence wouldn’t make a lot of sense because he’s a natural right guard and the Dolphins are set there with Robert Hunt. The Dolphins reiterated last week that they would like to keep Hunt at guard and not move him to tackle.

Achane has spent considerable time with the Dolphins this month.