Dolphins trade former first-round pick Ereck Flowers to WFT

The Dolphins have agreed to trade Ereck Flowers to the Washington Football Team (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport). The guard will head to D.C. in a swap of late-round picks.

The deal frees up cap room for the Dolphins, who will have to allocate lots of dollars to their oversized draft class. On Thursday, they’ll start things off with two first-round choices at No. 6 and No. 18 overall.

Meanwhile, Washington gets to reunite with a familiar face. Flowers couldn’t hack it as an offensive tackle in the NFL, but he has reinvented himself as a guard. In 2019, he parlayed a strong showing as Washington’s LG into a three-year, $30M contract with the Dolphins last year. It was more money than anyone expected for Flowers, though there weren’t many quality lineman on the board. After the Redskins locked down Brandon Scherff and the Patriots took Joe Thuney off of the market with a surprise franchise tag, Flowers was looking better than ever to teams in need of interior help.

Flowers stayed on the interior in Miami, serving as their starting LG in all 14 of his games. He earned decent marks from Pro Football Focus — his 65.9 overall score had him tied as the No. 32 guard in the NFL.

With two years to go on his deal, the former first-round pick is set to earn $9M in 2021.