Per CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, the Dolphins would love for a team to give up draft compensation for QB Tua Tagovailoa and take part of the contract, but that’s “extremely unlikely.”
He adds “nearly everyone in the league anticipates” a post-June 1st release being the outcome between the two sides. Miami could split a record $99.1 million cap charge by giving Tagovailoa a post-June 1 designation, which would equate to a $55.4 million cap hit in 2026 and another $43.8 million in 2027.
That’s a good read of the situation. While Dolphins GM Jon-Eric Sullivan said Tuesday at the Combine that “everything is on the table” regarding Tagovailoa (Marcel Louis-Jacques), including a trade, he also said it’s unlikely they can make the math work to take on all $99 million of Tagovailoa’s dead cap in a non-June 1st release. (C. Isaiah Smalls II)
The Dolphins have been willing to eat some of Tagovailoa’s $54 million guaranteed salary to make a trade work but any money they eat is added onto the dead money bill. If another team only wants to pay Tagovailoa $10 million — and it’s questionable how much appetite there is even for that — that still leaves the Dolphins with a huge dead money hit.
There’s also little incentive for a team to trade for Tagovailoa when there’s a strong chance he’ll be released and available for a minimum salary.
Sullivan shared, via Louis-Jacques, that he has been in contact with Tagovailoa’s camp, which told him Tagovailoa plans to keep playing, but didn’t outright express an interest in doing so with the Dolphins: “They have not, in particular, said he wants to stay.”
He was also asked if it’s possible to handle the cap hit from moving on from Tagovailoa while also signing a notable quarterback like Packers QB Malik Willis, who has been heavily linked to Miami given the connections Sullivan and new HC Jeff Hafley have to him from the last couple years in Green Bay.
“It’s no secret we are restrained salary cap-wise,” Sullivan responded via Joe Schad. “You can get creative and do almost anything. We also need to get back into a healthy salary cap state.”
The Dolphins have said one way or another they plan to add competition to the quarterback room this offseason. The idea of sticking with 2025 seventh-round QB Quinn Ewers as the starter in 2026 has also started to gain some steam.
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 appeared in 14 games for the Dolphins and completed 67.7 percent of his passes for 2,660 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions.
We’ll have more on Tagovailoa and the Dolphins as the news is available.
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