Should Tua stay or should he go?

[Pappy13]

Are you kidding me?   Giving a team a first round pick to take our garbage away?  

Well you can either pay for the garbage itself or pay to have it removed. Either way you are paying. It's not like if they don't pay for the garbage to be removed, it disappears all on it's own.

[Pappy13]

The context of the $70M is one bad season; a bad season that, it bears mentioning, would precisely align your need for a new franchise QB with a greater chance of an early pick to select said QB.

Then I hope we are not going to see Malik or any other substantial outlaying of salary cap for a QB, TE or any of the other FA's that Miami has been linked to. Now maybe that's all pure speculation and the Dolphins front office is exactly in line with what you are suggesting, which is to play the hand they have been dealt for 2026 and start looking for that franchise QB starting in 2027. I'm fine if that is what happens, but I'm worried they aren't going to do that. I'm worried they are going to sign high priced FA to compete with Ewers which is a huge mistake if they are just going to cut Tua in my humble opinion. Making a trade to get Tua's contract off the books makes some sense if you are going after Malik, otherwise you have to do what you just said and take a loss for 2026. Let's see if they have the balls to do it.

[Spider-Dan]

Wrong. At least in my case.

I was saying we should make him play out his 5th year, and if we weren't certain (and we shouldn't have been after 2024) then franchise tag him for a year.[/q

The Ravens did exactly that with Jackson, and it hurt neither as he signed a fat deal after he proved himself.

This is factually incorrect.  BAL attempted to extend Jackson in 2022 and he turned it down because he (correctly) believed he could improve his play even more.  After he won a 2nd MVP the following season,  BAL franchise tagged him and Lamar requested a trade.  The resolution of this dispute was that BAL made Lamar the highest paid player in the league (with the biggest signing bonus in history).  

But importantly, Lamar did not play a single game under the franchise tag; in contrast, you're saying Tua should have played an entire season under the tag.  And there are comps for that: Dak Prescott, who the Cowboys have had to wildly overpay with this sort of last-second "but prove it again" negotiation, and Kirk Cousins, who walked for nothing and took the Vikings to the playoffs multiple times, as Washington spent the next decade back in the QB wilderness.

Dak Prescott was tagged, broke his ankle in week 5, and the Cowboys had to give him the largest signing bonus in history anyway to keep him.  Is that the kind of outcome you would prefer?  The alternative is a Kirk Cousins situation where Tua finally proves himself right before he walks out the door for nothing.

The Dolphins do not get to operate in a different QB market than everyone else.  There are fans in GB saying "We're paying Jordan Love fifty million dollars for this?" right now.  HOU is going to have to either extend Stroud at a reasonable price this offseason, "make him prove it" and break the bank next year, or watch him walk just like Baker did in Cleveland.  (The only exceptions are Josh Allen and Justin Herbert, who are somehow allowed to fail over and over and are never blamed for any of their team's problems.)

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Our best option is keeping Tua on our list but saying he's PUP, locking him out of the building for 12 months, and refer him to a fat farm and psychologist to get his body and head right for when we do cut him before the 2027 season.

That gives him a very winnable claim at the money that is guaranteed for injury

[Downunder Dolphan]

That gives him a very winnable claim at the money that is guaranteed for injury

If there is any truth to the unconfirmed rumor that Tua has an injury clause payout in his contract (to the tune of $20M), then we have to seriously consider that he is borderline un-tradeable. He probably is already, even without that extra nugget.

No team in their right mind should consider picking up any of our tab if there's that hanging over their heads with his injury history - their best option is to wait for us to cut him, and scoop him up at the veteran's minimum wage.

I'm not saying there's no chance there's a team out there that isn't stupid enough to do it, and if they did they'd probably want our top pick (if not multiple picks) to take it on. The chances have got to be pretty slim though.

[Downunder Dolphan]

That gives him a very winnable claim at the money that is guaranteed for injury

Also, the PUP option was one being floated around by Omar and others as a distinct possibility of officially keeping him on our list but out of the building, saving $40M, but adding an additional space on the list in his absence.

I don't care what we do, as long as it's in the best interest of the team - and if that means taking up a list spot to save $40M, so be it. My football team would have "man conversations" where the brutal honesty came out whether you liked it or not, and maybe that's the best medicine for everyone.

Flat out tell him that he sucks to the point he's not even good enough to be a backup QB, he's a permanent third option on the list regardless of injuries, and is not in our plans to play a down in a Fins uniform again - but we can't cut him outright because his contract will cripple the team. If he respects that fine... otherwise piss off and count your money.

[Downunder Dolphan]

Apparently Tua wasn't that upset there was no mention of his birthday on the Dolphins' socials...

Omar Kelly dropped he had a huge birthday bash in the Bahamas (about 1.19 through)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wYIUK7Mr0U

He doesn't give a shit about the team, and we don't about him either.

So you know what, fuck it. Tell him he's gonna earn $55M next year either on the sidelines holding a clipboard, or doing his own thing getting ready for another team in 2027.

[Downunder Dolphan]

According to Joe Rose, we're cutting Tua right now and we're wearing the $99M cap hit over two years (as a post June 1st cut, which will have to go with a cut of Chubb the same day)

[Downunder Dolphan]

If there is any truth to the unconfirmed rumor that Tua has an injury clause payout in his contract (to the tune of $20M), then we have to seriously consider that he is borderline un-tradeable.

With the news today that he's been cut... he was genuinely un-tradable. As anyone with a clue knew before the end of least season.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Tom Grossi's take. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh3OPcjn-qM

[kidDyn0mite]

Tom Grossi's take. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh3OPcjn-qM

thus ending what is quite possibly the dumbest series of front office decisions in the history of football

tanking for tua...wasted draft pick... and then doubling down with the worse contract extension ever...

[Downunder Dolphan]

thus ending what is quite possibly the dumbest series of front office decisions in the history of football

tanking for tua...wasted draft pick... and then doubling down with the worse contract extension ever...

Add the Minkah deals on top of that gigantic brown emoji

[Pappy13]

Then I hope we are not going to see Malik or any other substantial outlaying of salary cap for a QB, TE or any of the other FA's that Miami has been linked to. Now maybe that's all pure speculation and the Dolphins front office is exactly in line with what you are suggesting, which is to play the hand they have been dealt for 2026 and start looking for that franchise QB starting in 2027. I'm fine if that is what happens, but I'm worried they aren't going to do that. I'm worried they are going to sign high priced FA to compete with Ewers which is a huge mistake if they are just going to cut Tua in my humble opinion. Making a trade to get Tua's contract off the books makes some sense if you are going after Malik, otherwise you have to do what you just said and take a loss for 2026. Let's see if they have the balls to do it.

Yeah, didn't think they had the balls to do it. Signing Malik is a big time gamble. If it pays off it will have been worth it, but if not in 3 years Miami is right back where they are at now and we are all saying this whole thing was a complete waste of time. Basically they have put all their eggs in Malik Willis' basket. I would have preferred they took the long term approach and just started from the ground up to build the roster and then tried to find their future QB in the draft somewhere along the way, but that would have been a 3 year process and I didn't think Ross nor the new front office were willing to do that. At best Willis is a stop gap in my humble opinion.

Maybe we are due for some luck? One can always dream.

[Spider-Dan]

$20M/yr for a QB is almost the floor for any veteran.
Running Ewers out there is basically trying to go winless.  When you have a 3rd-day-draft QB that gets it it is apparent immediately; see Tom Brady or Brock Purdy.
Ewers ain't it.

[Pappy13]

$20M/yr for a QB is almost the floor for any veteran.
Running Ewers out there is basically trying to go winless.  When you have a 3rd-day-draft QB that gets it it is apparent immediately; see Tom Brady or Brock Purdy.
Ewers ain't it.

No, but now you still have Tua's $99M cap hit on the books over the next 2years and have no team around Willis. Even if Willis is a top 5 QB in the league the next 2 years, he'll have no team around him and we'll have 7 or 8 wins and going nowhere fast. I would have rather seen Ewers in there and go 4-13 or something and draft your QB next year where you get a salary break for 4 years on your QB. You could build a roster around a guy like that. All of that just went up in smoke. I'm sorry but I don't have any faith that Willis is taking this team to a Superbowl in the next 5-10 years even with a much improved roster. Ewers wasn't either, but at least you were spending nothing on him. That $45 million on top of Tua's contract for a guy that's just as unproven as Ewers is not the answer I was looking for either.

Again, I hope and pray I'm wrong, but I've been hoping and praying I'm wrong since Tua was drafted and honestly it feels like that's what the Dolphins new front office is doing, hoping and praying.