MIAMI GARDENS — He’s big. He’s strong. He’s physical. He can play tackle or guard — “wherever the coaches tell me to play,” said Kadyn Proctor, proving the Miami Dolphins top pick in Thursday’s NFL draft also sounds coachable.

But he’s not Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, the chess piece the Dolphins passed on in trading down to let the Dallas Cowboys take.

And he’s really not University of Miami edge rusher Reuben Bain Jr., who local fans chanted for at a watch party as the Dolphins were on the clock to make their pick.

And so there was a surprise when the Dolphins took Proctor with the 12th pick.

All you can say is: Welcome, new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan. You’re officially part of South Florida now that this first draft pick wasn’t unanimously received. When’s the last time everyone straight-out applauded the Dolphins draft? Dan Marino in 1983?

“He’s unique,” he said. “He’s rare. His height (6 foot 6), weight (352 pounds), speed, production, the things he can do on the football field for a man his size. He’s an outlier.”

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Outside the Dolphins, the discussion is natural: Bain or Proctor? The alpha-dog defensive linemen everyone in South Florida loved as a Hurricane and who seemed to fall in the Dolphins lap or the lesser-known Alabama tackle who, yes, surprised some draftniks by being picked so high?

It’s not like the Dolphins passed on defense. They moved up from the 30th pick to the 27th later in the night to draft cornerback Chris Johnson. So, that began the filling of gaping holes in the roster just as was necessary this draft.

Proctor brings a big body that — get this — makes 6-7, 326-pound Patrick Paul look smaller. Does any NFL line have two tackles that size?

That’s if Proctor plays tackle this season. Sullivan said he can play all five positions on the line — another reason he liked him. But there’s a decision now where to play him and part of that might be what the Dolphins want to do with right tackle Austin Jackson.

But let’s be clear: You don’t draft a player 12th on a rebuilding team and put him in a secondary position for a year or two. You put hm where you want in the long-term. He played left tackle at Alabama. That’s Paul’s position. So, right tackle for Proctor?

But the question his play will have to answer is this: Why him? Why as the first pick?

Sullivan talked of the trenches enough leading up to the draft it isn’t a surprise that an offensive lineman was a target. One problem was teams before him thought the same. Cleveland took the first one in the draft in Utah’s Spencer Fano with the ninth pick. The New York Giants followed by taking local favorite Francis Mauigoa with the 10th pick.

Were those players the Dolphins wanted at 11th? Maybe. But the larger point is Sullivan suggested the Dolphins saw something other teams didn’t in Proctor.

“Most, to be honest,” he said, when asked in how many of their mock drafts the tackle was available to them.