One position that has become a Dolphins strength, with tangible evidence of improvement

There’s no All-Pro in the Miami Dolphins tight end room, but they appear to have the next best thing: players who are productive, coachable, ascending and inexpensive.

The Mike Gesicki/Durham Smythe/Adam Shaheen troika has been better than simply competent, good enough that Miami likely won’t feel any urgency to address the position in the early rounds of the 2021 NFL Draft. It’s a group that new starter Tua Tagovailoa figures to rely on in his first NFL start on Sunday.

Of 67 qualifying tight ends, Pro Football Focus ranks Gesicki sixth best this season, Shaheen 10th best and Smythe 43rd. And there’s now tangible evidence that Gesicki and Smythe have improved in areas that weren’t considered strengths. (More on that in a minute.)

“It’s been a total improvement, I think,” Shaheen said. “It’s been great.”

Before going without a catch (on two targets) against the New York Jets, Gesicki had 41 receptions for 557 yards and seven touchdowns in his previous 11 games — which ranked fifth and second, respectively, among all NFL tight ends in those categories.

Smythe caught his first NFL touchdown in Miami’s most recent game (against the Jets), and PFF ranks him the 12th-best tight end in pass blocking.

“Durham has been a big part of our club for the last two years that I’ve been here, just in the run game and from a leadership standpoint in that room,” tight ends coach George Godsey said. “When he was able to catch the rock for a touchdown, I think it excited that room because we know how much he means to both the O-line as far as being a part of them and then the run game, being the physical player, in the tight end room.”

Shaheen, acquired from the Chicago Bears in July for a conditional seventh-round pick, has four catches for 54 yards — with two touchdowns — during the past two games.

The Dolphins initially expected February addition Michael Roberts to be their No. 3 tight end, but he sustained a nonfootball injury that led to his release this summer. So the Dolphins smartly pounced on Shaheen, who wasn’t going to be prominently featured in Chicago after three disappointing, injury-plagued seasons following his selection in the second round of the 2017 Draft out of Ashland College.

Shaheen had 26 catches for 249 yards and four touchdowns in 27 games for the Bears during those three seasons, including 13 starts. The Dolphins rewarded him this week with a two-year contract extension with a maximum value of $7.9 million that includes $3.2 million fully guaranteed, per a source.

“Adam has had some success in this league; this guy has caught touchdowns before,” Godsey said.

“He just hit a point in his career where maybe he ran through a couple of injuries; but obviously he’s showed up here in the past couple of weeks, and he’s doing a good job too in the run game. We’re a pretty tight-knit group in that room, and it’s good to see each other succeed.”

So tight-knit, in fact, that Smythe said he believes Gesicki “gets more excited — which is hard to do — he gets more excited when [Smythe or Shaheen] score, I think, than when he does. And when you see him in the end zone when he scores, he gets pretty damn excited, so that says something about him.”

Smythe, Gesicki and Shaheen “all have natural talents that come a little bit more natural to us in certain parts of the game,” Smythe said. That’s receiving for Gesicki and Shaheen, blocking for Smythe.

But “over the last year, especially this offseason, me and Mike took a step back and tried to work on that other part of the game to be more multiple, to be more complete players,” Smythe said.

There is now evidence that both players have improved in those areas that they felt needed to be addressed.

After catching six of 11 targets for 50 yards as a rookie and 7 of 14 for 65 yards last season, Smythe has caught four of five passes for 41 yards this season. Not only did he catch his first career touchdown against the Jets, but three of his 2020 receptions have gone for first downs, compared with four combined during his first two seasons.

As for Gesicki, he has been asked to pass block on only four of his 228 offensive snaps and run block on 49 of those snaps. And as a run blocker, Pro Football Focus ranks him first among all tight ends — an emormous improvement from his first two seasons.

Gesicki and Smythe have one more full season left on their rookie contracts; they will make $1.4 million and $920,000, respectively, in 2021.

Shaheen is now under contract through 2022. “He’s been productive over the first six weeks of the season,” coach Brian Flores said. “We just felt like he was somebody we wanted to keep around for a few more years.”

One challenge for all three this week: Adjusting to a new quarterback. Gesicki and Ryan Fitzpatrick are particularly close.

Tagovailoa “has got the intelligence to make all of the reads and he’s got the legs to be able to escape pressure and make plays with his feet,” Gesicki said. “It’s not like I’m about to catch my first ball from him. This has been dating all the way back to when we first got out there in late July, just working on some timing and seeing how he’s going to place the ball. I’ve run full speed routes with him” before this week.

Here’s my Thursday piece on how Tua Tagovailoa has looked in practice this week, an update on the Xavien Howard situation and injury news.

Here’s my Thursday Miami Hurricanes 6-pack.