One Team Considered Eating Tua Tagovailoa Contract If Dolphins Gave First-Round Pick

According to CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, a high-ranking team executive for another team told him they would have considered trading for Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa if the Dolphins had included a first-round pick to eat nearly his whole contract.

There’s some precedent for that with a trade involving the Browns and Texans for QB Brock Osweiler back in 2017. Houston gave Cleveland a second-round pick to take on Osweiler’s contract, which adjusted for the current salary cap would have been around $30 million. 

However, Jones notes the NFL management council frowns upon trades that are nakedly about picks for cash. And regardless, the Dolphins haven’t shown an appetite for attaching draft capital to unload Tagovailoa.

New GM Jon-Eric Sullivan has been willing to eat a lot of cash to get another team to trade a pick for Tagovailoa but has spoken about how much he values draft selections as Miami pivots to a rebuild. Miami hasn’t had success finding a buyer for Tagovailoa. 

Tagovailoa has a $54 million fully-guaranteed salary and the expectation is the Dolphins will release him with a June 1 cut sometime after the start of the league year next week. That will split what will be an NFL-record $99.1 million dead cap hit. 

Once he’s cut, he’ll be free to sign on with another team for the veteran minimum salary. 

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 as the news is available.