The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

The Dolphins rank 30th in NFL salary cap space, according to Spotrac. One might argue that -$16.9 million isn't really "space" at all. It's more like a really bad credit card debt.

https://sports.yahoo.com/miami-dolphins-salary-cap-much-170323807.html

Highest-paid Miami Dolphins in 2025:

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa $39.4 million
Edge rusher Bradley Chubb $29.3 million
Receiver Tyreek Hill $28.7 million
Left tackle Terron Armstead $22.4 million
Cornerback Jalen Ramsey $16.6 million
Right tackle Austin Jackson $14 million
Edge rusher Jaelan Phillips $13.3 million
Defensive lineman Zach Sieler $12.4 million

The highest Miami Dolphins dead cap salary cap hits of 2025: (The Dolphins are eighth in the NFL with $21.6 million in dead cap space)

Cornerback Xavien Howard $15.7 million
Defensive end Shaq Barrett $4.4 million
Receiver Odell Beckham Jr. $895,000

Within the article it mentions that without drastic restructures for our highest paid players, parting ways with both Chubb and Armstead is our only realistic chance to make any cap space.

Since the article was published, it looks like there's been a little space freed up by the departures of Thompson, Needham, etc, but we're still $-14.1 million (29th).

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/miami-dolphins/cap/_/year/2025

Between this and the numbers of FA leaving Dolphins are not going to be able to match this year.  Forget improving.

We did that last year so its very possible we continue that trend.

We chose to pay Tua so everything kind of lives and dies by that decision.  He has to play, and play well, to make up for the other holes.  We will be a slow trickle of lost talent that we're going to have to make up with smart money.

I don't fully understand how the cap works, but how can we afford to keep a guy like Armstead?  He is hurt all the time and the line sucks anyway.  At least suck for cheap.

I find this kind of take pretty weird.  Do you - a Dolphins fan - think the same thing about BAL, PHI, LAC, CIN, DET, GB, JAX, and DAL?  Because they're all paying their QBs big bucks, too.

If you don't have a starting QB on a rookie contract, you're either paying some reclamation project on a short-term contract (e.g. Baker, Carr, Russ) or you signed your franchise QB to a monster deal.  The teams who are paying their franchise QBs significantly less than Tua signed those deals several years before Tua got paid.

Big QB contracts are not a competitive disadvantage if your competitors are also paying them.

Yes. When you pay people big money they have to be game changers to offset the low income people. That was exactly our problem. Our big money guys didn't do much for us ... especially when we needed them to step up.

Tua is a decent QB.  But he isn't a game changer.  Also he has had only one season out of 5 has he played more than 75% of the season.  The Dolphin's should be paying Tua less than other teams pay QBs that aren't taking unnecessary injury risks. 

The argument in favor of the extending him last season was "if we wait it will be even more expensive next season"  the argument against was "let's see if he can play the full season"  I am pretty sure if the Dolphin's had chosen to wait they could have gotten him for less this off season. 

^^^ I agree. I think what happened with Wilkens probably freaked them out a bit. Tua's play would have actually warranted him less unlike Wilkens. 

Yes, pretty much.

It doesn't mean that it's over, but you kinda gotta find a way to win with what you have.  There are diamonds in the rough and exceptions, but for all of these teams, for the most part -- if you have top paid QB and they don't play in the games, you're cooked.

Dolphins were worried Tua would leave for a monster deal and then get a season ending injury?

^^^ I think they were or else there was no need to make the deal early. I don't think there are many, if any, teams that would pay him what we are paying. It kind of looks like the Dolphins panicked when in fact they were only competing against themselves.

Let's suppose that MIA refuses to pay Tua the $53M/yr they gave him, and instead he signs with some other team (e.g. LV) for the $45M/yr Kirk Cousins got.
Are the Dolphins better off because some other team paid him less?

The team had the worst offense in the league without Tua under center.  Which QB do you pick up that changes that... Sam Darnold?  Jameis Winston?

I think we're asking and answering two things.

I am not even debating whether or not we should've paid Tua.  I'm past it.  You can make arguments that we shouldn't (or that we should), but we have, in fact, paid him and kept him, so here we are.

And now that we're here, in order to be successful, the only way to get there short of a miracle is for Tua to stay healthy and play well enough to compensate for the talent losses that will come over time.  That's pretty standard.

As long as Tua is the starting QB the dolphins are only as good as the backup.  Tua is fun to watch, but he doesn't play it smart

Tua's contract in isolation isn't ridiculous. But throw in the other high guaranteed contracts we're already committed to, and it's trouble.

Immediately after Tua signed up, I said that it made Tyreek effectively unaffordable after 2024 - if we cut him after this season under the old contract, we would have saved something close to $60 million in cap space. Yet Grier restructured his contract to bring more money forward and basically guarantee it all.

If you check out the link to those Spotrac tables (and toggle the year from 2025 to 2026, 2027, etc) you will see the bulk of Waddle's cap hit kicks in from 2027. The cap hits for Tua and Ramsey sharply increase from 2026 to balloon in 2028.

None of it is ridiculous.  Prime QBs in the NFL cost a ton of money to stay in their city.  That's just the way it is.  You can either lean into it or cut bait.  We leaned into it, like so many teams do, and that's fine.  But it's a choice that has other repercussions.  You can't afford to do that and also better yourself at all these other positions.  So, the QB has to play and play great in order to succeed.  Tua has missed games, therefore it isn't working out.

I don't think this is a controversial take.  I love Tua.  I want him to play and I want him to play well and I think he's very good.  But if he doesn't stay healthy or doesn't play well, we kind of have no shot.

I'd say we didn't so much as lean into it, we jumped hard and we jumped early. We could have made him play out his rookie contract (this season), and we could have franchised him the year after that (next season). It's not unheard of - the Ravens did it with Jackson, and that hasn't hurt them one little bit.

Like I said earlier (and elsewhere, I think in the "Tua gets paid" thread), it's not a ridiculous contract. In isolation there's nothing wrong with it at all. It's fair value compared to other QB at a comparable skill level around the league that got paid...

But as you also mentioned there are consequences, and big ones at that because we maxed out the credit card with him on a rookie deal. We lost a lot of highly drafted players last offseason to bring his payday forward, and we are going to lose more the next couple of offseasons to pay the rest of his contract, along with huge cap hits of Tyreek (for at least next season whether he stays with us or not), and possibly Chubb and Armstead (if we don't do some effective renegotiation's, or cut them), then Ramsey from 2026 and Waddle from 2027.

Get ready to say goodbye to Holland and Kohu, then Achane, Phillips, Jonnu Smith, and probably Sieler when their contracts end. They're getting paid comparatively peanuts right now, and we won't have the money to keep them.

Dolphins have overpaid on many contracts.  It almost appears that the Dolphins giveaway money so they can brag they have a top 5 paid QB, top paid we.

Dolphins thought they were very close to competing for a Championship, so they overpaid for some free agents.  Unfortunately Grier/McDaniel were wrong about Tua, wrong about the Oline, and injuries exasperated the issue.

At the moment Tua signed his deal, he was the 3rd-highest paid QB, which became 4th-highest later that same day.  By the end of that offseason, Tua was 5th.

If the Dolphins' goal was to "brag they have a top 5 paid QB" then they didn't pay Tua nearly enough, because he won't be a "top 5 paid QB" even one year after his deal was signed.  They would have needed to give him Trevor Lawrence or Dak Prescott-type money if that was actually their goal.

Dolphins will manipulate the salary cap and extend these big payments but they aren't going to be able to bring in enough talent to make much of a difference. Watching these playoffs its apparent we are an FCS team in a FBS league. Sure we can win once in a while but we won't be able to compete with the good teams most of the time.

Well the Dolphins would be in the hunt for another QB in this draft and wouldn't have his salary to worry about so yeah, I kinda think that would be preferable to the situation we are in now. Call me crazy, I've been called worse.

Don't mistake that for saying that would solve all the Dolphins problems as it wouldn't, but I would rather be looking for a QB in this draft than going into next year with Tua. That's as far as I'll go.

There is no chance any rookie QB coming out this year would be able to run this offense.  In the scenario you propose, you might as well just get rid of McDaniel.

I mean, if the idea is that Miami would be "better off" to blow up the team and fire/cut everyone... that's not something you need to plan for?  You can just do that at any time, particularly if your "goal" is to tank for an early pick.  You can do it right now!

P.S. obligatory reminder that tanking doesn't work in the NFL, which should be obvious given that Miami successfully acquired the QB they were supposed to tank 2019 for (and that you are currently saying should have been discarded)