It seems counter-intuitive, but the Miami Dolphins could find their way out of their salary cap crunch by dishing out more money this offseason rather than just cutting costs.
Just last year, the Dolphins cleared up a ton of cap space by dishing out new contracts to Tyreek Hill and Tua Tagovailoa — dropping their 2024 salary cap hits from $31.3 and $23.1 million to $18.4 and $9.5 million, respectively.
It’s not a strategy without drawbacks. Those two players are now set to count a combined $66.9 million against the Dolphins’ salary cap in 2025 and an astronomical $108.3 million in 2026. But the philosophy for most teams is to sort out the salary cap in the present and worry about manipulating contracts to make things work later. More often than not, kicking the can down the road works out fine.
Miami cleared nearly $8 million in cap space Friday by releasing a trio of veterans. But dishing out money to these five players could save the Dolphins a whole lot more: