Should Dolphins Fans be Worried about Malik Willis’ Marlins First Pitch Epic Fail?

Malik Willis, the new face of the Miami Dolphins quarterback room, threw out a ceremonial first pitch at a Marlins game and missed the catcher by a country mile. The Rich Eisen Show, fresh off a segment on rookie quarterback decorum, immediately had to litigate whether Dolphins fans should be panicking.

The panel verdict, after a lot of laughter, was no.

"His career as a Miami Marlin? That's over," Rich said. "But his career as a Miami Dolphin? What are we doing here?" The pitch itself, by the show's reckoning, was historically bad. Willis showed up in a full kit with his own glove. The ball sailed. The room compared it to a Nuke LaLoosh pitch from Bull Durham, agreeing that if the Durham bull had been on the field, the throw would have hit it.

Willis told reporters he slipped. Rich was not buying it. He kept circling back to the bigger question underneath the bit. Does every NFL quarterback now have to know how to throw a baseball? Are we all expected to be Russell Wilson playing for the Savannah Bananas? Jameis Winston, the room noted, threw in the mid-90s. The assumption that every quarterback grew up as a pitcher does not actually hold.

Chris brought receipts. He pulled up the memory of a Patrick Mahomes ceremonial first pitch that was also, by his account, awful. High and online, but bad. Mahomes is the son of a major league pitcher and an actual former baseball player. Darius Butler had made the same point on Twitter, and Mahomes had retweeted him with a chill, chill, chill about how he thought all that footage had been deleted. The takeaway, the panel agreed, was that even the best quarterback in football has airmailed a first pitch.

Rich brought it home with the football reality of the situation. The Dolphins are sitting at the top of more than one early mock draft for next year. Daniel Jeremiah came on the show and floated Dante Moore as the quarterback who could go first overall, with Miami as the team that could be picking. The reason, Rich explained, is that nobody knows yet what Jeff Hafley and John Eric Sullivan are cooking up.

He walked through the new draft class. Caden Proctor. Chris Johnson, a defensive back out of San Diego State. Jacob Rodriguez, a linebacker out of Texas Tech. Caleb Douglas, a wide receiver out of Texas Tech. Will Kasmerick, a tight end out of Ohio State. Chris Bell, a wide receiver from Louisville. None of them, Rich said, are slam-dunk franchise-altering names yet. The collective could ball out, or it could fall flat. The verdict on the rebuild is months away.

The pitch, Rich argued, has nothing to do with any of that. Dolphins fans worried about the first overall pick in next year's draft are not worried because of a baseball throw. They are worried because the front office is one big question mark and the answers do not come in until the season starts.

Mike pivoted to the Overreaction Monday energy of the whole bit and called it appropriately on brand. Willis has one year, by the panel's read, to prove the Dolphins do not need to spend a top-five pick on a quarterback. The first pitch is not part of the evaluation. The next sixteen games are.