According to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, a potential benching of Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa is not off the table at some point this season if he continues to struggle.
Rapoport adds that things would have to fall off dramatically for the Dolphins to turn to other options, with Zach Wilson and seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers rounding out the depth chart.
Wilson is the No. 2 currently but has been pushed by Ewers and Rapoport says not to discount the possibility that Ewers plays meaningful snaps this season.
Miami is 2-7 and Tagovailoa leads the NFL with 11 interceptions. Both his play on the field and his leadership off of it have been called into question at various points this season.
The Dolphins fired GM Chris Grier this past week after 10 years in charge, signaling some level of significant change will be coming in the offseason. Miami retained HC Mike McDaniel for now but both he and Tagovailoa are competing for their jobs in 2026, per Rapoport.
Tagovailoa is due $54 million in fully guaranteed salary next year, plus another $3 million of his 2027 salary will become guaranteed in mid-March, putting the Dolphins on the hook for $57 million if Tagovailoa is on the team in 2026.
Rapoport says the Dolphins have three options:
- Keep Tagovailoa as the starter for another season
- Cut him
- Attempt to trade him to another team, likely eating a portion of his salary to facilitate a deal
Rapoport notes releasing Tagovailoa would set a new NFL record for dead money, incurring a cap hit of $99.2 million. That’s more than the $85 million in dead money the Broncos ate when they cut QB Russell Wilson, though they were able to bounce back from that and provide a potential model for Miami.
Like Denver, the Dolphins would have to designate Tagovailoa as a June 1 cut to split the dead money between two seasons.
Rapoport goes on to say the more attractive option, by far, if the Dolphins decide they want to move on from Tagovailoa as the starter is to find a team willing to take him in a trade as a bridge starter. He thinks the Dolphins would have a market if they went this direction but they’d have to pay down a significant portion of his $54 million salary. Whatever that number would be would be added to the $45.2 million in dead money triggered by a trade.
That means there’s a lot on the line for Tagovailoa and the Dolphins in the second half of the season.
Tagovailoa, 27, was selected with the No. 5 overall pick out of Alabama in 2020 by the Dolphins. He signed a four-year, $30,275,438 rookie contract with a $19,578,501 signing bonus. He earned a base salary of $1,010,000 in the final year of his deal.
The Dolphins picked up Tagovailoa’s fifth-year option worth $23,171,000 for the 2024 season.
From there, the team re-signed him to a four-year deal worth up to $212 million that included $167 million guaranteed.
In 2025, Tagovailoa has appeared in nine games for the Dolphins and completed 67.9 percent of his passes for 1,779 yards, 15 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.
We’ll have more on the Dolphins and Tagovailoa as the news is available.
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