The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Today they cut, Tyreek Hill, Bradley Chubb, James Daniels, and Nick Westbrook. They released Zach Wilson a few days ago.

I'm not sure about Wilson but with the other cuts they have created about 56 mill to the Cap Space and just under 67 million in salary.

These seem to be all player evaluations, what they think they can get out of them in 2026.  Tyreek is expensive and has too many off field issues.  A great player in the games where he wants to go out and play, but other times doesn't seem to give the effort.  Chubb came around at the end of last year and could possibly be great this season if he stays healthy.

I'm glad Hill is gone. He won't be the same player again.

What does any of this mean for Tua and that price-tag?

^^^I don't think Tua is going anywhere, we're stuck with him just like Cleveland's been stuck with Watson.  At least Miami will have a decent backup.  With a tough schedule ahead I hope Miami just rides out the year with Ewers starting, maybe he'll be as good as they thought he was going to be a couple years ago when he passed on the draft and played another year of college ball.

I believe the chances that Tua is on the roster for 2026 are very small. How they manage to remove him from the roster is up for debate, but I don't think there's really any discussion going on about how to keep him on the roster. Now of course they aren't going to come out and say that, not even to Tua because Tua is on the roster...until he isn't. All the talk of it being impossible to NOT have Tua on the roster is just plain nonsense. Of course it's possible, actually it's probable the only real question is what is the best way to do it and that can't be answered until a later date and even discussing it now could be detrimental to that cause. So once they decide how to get him off the roster, then they'll discuss it but you'll get nothing out of the Dolphins about it before that time.

I suspect they want to cut/restructure to generate the cap space first.

They do, but they basically already have the cap space they need to play the 2026 season with the cuts they made above. Interestingly they have not yet announced whether Chubb will be a pre or post June 1st cut which they are probably waiting till they decide what to do with Tua to decide that. They would prefer to make him a pre June 1st cut, but they may not have any choice but to make him a post June 1st cut to split some of his cap hit until 2027.

With McDaniel and Hill both gone there's very little reason to bring back Tua. He's all but gone already, it's just a matter of how they do it. I still think there's a better than 50/50 chance that he's traded. Obviously Miami is going to have to pay some of his salary and they may even have to throw in a player or draft pick to complete the process. They won't want to give up a draft pick, but a player is a real possibility. There's some teams that make a lot of sense like Atlanta and Indy, both of whom don't have healthy QB's right now. Tua could bridge the gap until their QB get's back so he's not a long term solution but makes a lot of sense as a fill in QB to keep your 2026 season afloat till your QB is healthy.

There's about $45M of cap space why (over one or two years, take your pick)

With the cuts already made, there has to be zero chance that Tua is a pre-June 1st cut. It would literally be seppuku to any chance of a barely decent 2026 season, as there would be no salary space to deal with. If you thought the last two years were tough dealing with the roster populated by bums off the street and cheap mercenaries trying to prolong what was left of an NFL career... that would be mere foreplay to what's ahead. We are at nearly $74 million in dead cap money in 2026 already BEFORE we even make a decision on TUA! Seriously, look it up! Add $67.4M (post June-1st) or the full $99.2M before June, and this team's 2026 season is seriously fucked.

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/miami-dolphins

Ps. As of right now, our salary cap space after those hard cuts is... under $3.7M.

(That previous pre-Tua 2026 dead-cap number didn't even include Chubb. Throw his name in the pile and it's potentially up to $98M!)

If we cut Tua, even post June 1st, we're going to have to find cap space (cut players) to the tune of at least an additional $11M just to get to the starting line to keep whoever is left, let alone sign anyone else. Plus you have to add another player to the list.

Think about it. Cutting Tua costs us money compared to having him on the bench or occasionally in the building. That's a big reason to bring back Tua, regardless of if he even sees grass on the field.  

Tua's contract is going to cripple any chance of the Dolphin's chances in 2026, the question is do you want the contract to also be harmful to 2027?

What do you accomplish by by moving some of the dead money into 2027 instead of 2026? Do that Dolphins have ability to  to construct a team for 2026 capable of making the playoffs?  No.  If they enter 2027 with no dead money and a roster of young players on rookie contracts in which a few of are players that in hindsight should have been day two draftees not UDFA then they have a chance at building a competitive team.   

And before anyone says "of course Hoodie wants the Dolphins to suck"  If the NEP don't win the division this year it will be because of the Bills.  As a Patriots fan I actually would like you to spend 2027 and 2028 cap space on FA that allow you to win just enough games not to be drafting top 10 and perpetually stay in a position where you have enough resources to finish ahead of the Jets but never enough resources to make the playoffs. 

So? How does any of that make the Dolphins better by having him on the team? It doesn't. Which means it absolutely makes more sense to trade him or just outright release him than have him on the team. We have to pay Tua that $99.2M regardless of if he's on the team or not unless we can get someone to take him for part of his salary. So the only question is do you want him on the team or not and the consensus seems to be or not.

That's not quite the full picture. You'll notice that Chubb is still listed on the page with the Dolphins having already said they are cutting him. That's because they haven't yet announced whether that will be a pre or post June 1st cut which has implications on the salary cap which one they choose. If it's pre June 1st they will save around $7M on the 2026 cap putting them around $10.5M under the cap. If it's a post June 1st cut they will save around $20M on the 2026 cap making them around $23.5M under the cap for 2026. The reason they haven't decided yet is because of Tua. While on the team he costs them $56M in cap space for 2026. If they cut him pre June 1st that would cost us $99M a difference of $43M which would put us over the cap regardless of what they do with Chubb so that doesn't really work without a lot of other cap space savings somewhere else. If they cut Tua post June 1st he would cost $67M toward the cap in 2026 a difference of $11M over keeping him on the roster so if they do post June 1st cut for both Tua and Chubb they would be around $12M under the cap, which is enough to start the season without making any more moves and they are most certainly going to make some more moves like cutting Jason Sanders, perhaps something with Minkah etc.

They already have the cap space to cut Tua and Chubb and still field a team in 2026, but that would mean post June 1st cuts for both Tua and Chubb and they really don't want to do that. Ideally I think they would like to make Tua a post June 1st cut and Chubb a pre June 1st cut, but they aren't quite there yet. They would have to make a few more moves to make that happen. Getting someone to trade for Tua and pick up a part of his salary would be ideal as that would lower his cap hit and possibly allow the Dolphins to designate Chubb as a pre June 1st cut, but failing that they are going to have to make some more moves which remains to be seen what they do.

At least that's my understanding. If I'm wrong about something and I fully admit that I might be, let me know, but I'm basing a lot of this on what I've read from a lot of others that are infinitely better about these salary cap numbers then I am.

Eat it. Accept this coming season cannot be a success. Get ready rebuild and don't delay. I learned as a child it's best just to rip the bandaid.

Not just this season. As I mentioned earlier, if you cut Tua, you are going to have to cut even more players off the roster just to make the cap limit (and even more to have any space to sign rookies and anyone else).

Be prepared to goodbye to Minkah, Jackson, Waddle, Brewer, Brooks, Ingold, Sieler, basically anyone who isn't on a rookie or minimum wage contract the next two seasons.

We are staring directly at a 0-17 prospect in 2026, and a bottom up rebuild from 2027 that is going to take years to be remotely competitive.

The Dolphins are already heavily crippled for 2026 because of all the other dead money in the cap, and still little to no space to show for it. Adding another $45M of dead money is suicidal.

Eating the full $99M of Tua's contract in 2026 will have to result in a fire sale of virtually anyone decent on our list just to stay under the cap limit.

A number of experts have now said cutting Tua pre-June 1 is virtually an impossibility because of how bad the Dolphins cap situation is already - the only way we can realistically do it is as a post June-1 cut and carry $33M of the poison into 2027. This isn't the same situation as Russell Wilson in Denver, it's far, far worse.  

Minkah, jackson, brewer, brooks , ingold  are all FA in 2027 so cutting or trading them for cap space would only really effect 2026.  And you could likely get decent picks for either the 2026 or 2027 draft. 

Cutting Sieler or Waddle would make the cap space situation worse so no point cutting or trading them.

This just isn't true in any way shape or form unless you are talking about taking the full $99M for Tua in 2026. That's not ripping off the bandaid that's hacking off all 4 limbs. There's no way that the Dolphins do that, it's basically impossible, not even realistic. As I said above, they basically already have made enough cuts to the roster to meet the salary cap for 2026 provided that Chubb is designated as a post June 1st cut and Tua is cut post June 1st, traded or kept on the roster. If they want to designate Chubb as a pre June 1st cut then they'll have to do a bit more cutting, but it's doable.

2026 is going to be a lean year no question about that, but to suggest they have to completely gut the roster and be looking at 0-17 is utter nonsense. Now they could go 0-17, but it would be largely with the same roster they had last year which would be a huge underperformance and basically if that happens the biggest mistake would have to be considered hiring Hafley as head coach if that happens.

Unless you can convince someone to pick up lets say $30M of his salary and you eat the rest. Maybe throw in a player or draft pick to complete the deal. That's a possibility. It requires a trade partner willing to do that but I don't think it's crazy to think that someone might be willing to pay Tua $30M for 1 year. Probably not, but you never know.

It's pretty hilarious to see a fan of a team that went from 4 wins to the Super Bowl talk about which teams are obviously unable to compete next year.

Your favorite team just lost the Super Bowl to Sam Darnold and you want to opine on which teams have unsalvageable QB dilemmas?  If the 2025 Patriots can make the Super Bowl, then any fucking team in the league can.

The 2025 NEP had a huge number of FA signing made possible by a surplus of cap space. 

Could the Titans bounce back from a 3-14 season to winning a superbowl?  With very shrewd signings and some lucky breaks it is possible.  But teams like Dolphins and Browns don't have the cap space to organize such a bounce back even if every move they make they hit on.       

There's one more possibility for Tua that I hadn't thought of. Injured reserve. This is actually a really good idea if they can't trade him since he wouldn't be a distraction to the team that way, but you could still push his next year's salary to next year and keep alive the idea of a trade partner sometime later.

Omar Kelly floats IR idea for Tua. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/dolphins-beat-writer-floats-unexpected-tua-tagovailoa-solution/ar-AA1WQ4Ti?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=699bc3ffa40e43a292caa9165b720295&ei=16)

He also pointed out that if he is on IR this year, he may be able to activate his injury clause for next year which would activate another year.

I've got to give props to Omar lately. They were discussing why they paid Tua when no other team was in the mix. Of course, the answer was a given as Tua would sit out all of the preseason. Omar pointed out that if the Dolphins had brought in competition like someone like Jimmy Garoppolo instead of Mike White and Skyler he would have played. It would have been a huge risk to let someone like him get his shot. As it is, the Dolphins have been afraid of QB competition for a long time.

I've already said this before, but this "Pay Tua less" strategy was always dumb.  If the Dolphins believed in Tua then they should have paid him (as they did), and if they didn't believe in him then they should have traded him at his peak value coming off leading the league in yardage (and the fanbase would have revolted).

If the team franchise tags him, it means they don't believe he will be good, and they're putting themselves in a position where they have to hope he doesn't play well, or they will have to commit an even larger contract to him.

If the team lowballs him (instead of tagging him) then not only do you risk him walking for nothing, but you don't gain anything meaningful; if MIA were paying Tua $42M/year instead of $52M/year, this entire offseason would have went exactly the same.

...or a third option, just make him stick to his original contract which almost no one other than Tua would have been upset about.

That is the same outcome as "franchise tag him": you put yourself in the position of hoping he plays poorly or the price goes up even more.

If you didn't believe in him then you should have traded him right after he made the Pro Bowl.

If he plays well you pay the man, he earned it. That's what the NFL did for decades.

Tua got paid after he led the league in passing yards and helmed the #1 offense while being voted the starter of the Pro Bowl. So "if he plays well you pay the man, he earned it" clearly doesn't apply; the argument now is that Tua should NOT have been paid.  (And it's not like Tua was paid early; he was paid a year later than Hurts, Herbert, and Burrow, three QBs from the same draft.  And all three of those players were given "highest-paid player in league history" contracts, while Tua was not despite signing a year later.)

So if that's the contention, then MIA should have just traded him: either you're hoping he plays poorly so you can sign him at a discount (but why would you?), or if he plays well again, now you've put yourself in even more financial trouble... or worst case, you're in the "Kirk Cousins in Washington" scenario, where you're franchise tagging him at top dollar just to watch him walk for nothing.

He hadn't earned it yet as he hadn't yet fullfilled his current contract. Leading the league is what you hope for when you sign a player, that shouldn't mean we tear up your contract and give you a fat new one because you played as hoped. Are players going to rip up their contract if they don't play up to expectations? This is historically how things have worked in the NFL. It's a recent thing to start paying guys a year or 2 before their current contract ends and in many cases the team ends up regretting it. Of those other guys that were paid early only Hurts has really accomplished what was hoped when they paid him. In my opinion those guys are not good examples of this working out, they are good examples of it not working out. Burrow isn't happy in Cincy and if Herbert doesn't take them deep into the playoffs next year, he may be on his way out as well. Tua makes that 3 out of 4. 1 out of 4 is not what I would call best practice. Paying QB's as if they are the best in the league before they have really shown that to be true isn't working or at the very least isn't working any better than simply not doing that.

I'll fully admit that had Miami not paid him before the 2024 season he played well enough in 2024 that they would have paid him anyway before the 2025 season and still been in the same situation they are now. Don't confuse my opinion with one that if the Dolphins hadn't paid him in 2024 they wouldn't be in this mess, they still would be and yet I still think the best thing would have been to excercise the 5th year option and wait to pay Tua after he fulfilled his rookie contract as I think it sets a bad precedent to pay them before you have to. The only thing that would have probably prevented the current issue is if Miami did pick up his 5th year option and Tua had retired in 2024 after being injured, but I don't think that was ever really going to happen. That's just my opinion, no one is asking me for my opinion.

You are arguing for the way you think things should work, not the way they do. (And I'm not citing the other 2020 QBs because they "worked out," but rather because that is what the market is.)

Of the four other "franchise" QBs in the 2020 draft, three of them signed extensions a year before Tua, and the fourth - who was a backup for his first 3 years! - signed his extension literally the same day as Tua. Tua already had to "prove it" more than his peers in the same draft class, and you're saying MIA should have made him wait ANOTHER year.

The Dolphins don't get to operate under a different set of rules than everyone else: either you pay your QB on the same timing as his peers, or you try to cheap out and risk paying them top dollar on franchise tags before watching them walk for nothing like Cousins in WSH.

Absolutely. It's the way it worked for years. It's the way it works for the majority of players in the NFL. I don't understand the current fascination with NFL QB's both when it comes to the draft and when it comes to contracts.

It actually makes sense for the NBA as your star player can easily carry your team to an NBA championship. It doesn't make sense in the NFL where your QB cannot carry a team to the championship even though we still treat them like they can. Even Brady didn't carry his team to championships he had a LOT of help, much more than anyone gives credit. We've built up the QB position to be the only thing that matters when it's not. I won't disagree that it's the most important position on the team, but it's still a long way from being the only thing that matters and that's how the NFL treats the position. The QB position doesn't matter if you don't have the rest of your team in order. Seems like everyone thinks once you have your QB, everything else is easy to get in place. I'd argue that it might be easier to do the opposite, get everything else in place and then get your QB. If you do it that way you don't necessarily need a franchise QB, you just need an effecient QB.

But it's not the way it works for franchise QBs, and that's been the case for many years (basically since the modern version of franchise tags).  So if you try to treat a QB this way, he'll never be your franchise QB, because he'll walk or demand a trade.

Again, the Dolphins compete in the same market for players as the rest of the teams.  So if the Jaguars, Packers, Bengals, Chargers, Eagles, Cardinals, Bills, Texans, and Chiefs all sign their hopeful-franchise QB draftees to their first big contract early, the Dolphins had better do it too if they don't want to risk losing him.  (This shouldn't even be a big deal, because it's not a competitive disadvantage if your competitors have to do it too.)

There's the rub, because I wasn't convinced that Tua was a franchise QB.

Agreed. I've already admitted that this doesn't have anything to do with the current salary cap issue the Dolphins face. That would have happened regardless. That was never my contention.

The Dolphins don't have a QB problem, they have a cap management problem.  They have $74 million in dead money not including Tua.

They have both which is a double whammy.