Today we continue our six-part series analyzing the teams with the most work ahead in 2026 to get under the salary cap. Over The Cap has a neat metric called effective cap space, which is basically a projection of spending power for each team in 2026. It measures how much cap space teams are projected to have after accounting for signing draft picks and filling out a full roster. Per OTC, six teams have deficits of $25 million or more in effective cap space in 2026. 

• Chiefs (-$61.7M)
• Cowboys (-$59.9M)
• Vikings (-$51M)
• Dolphins ($-29.7M)
• Browns (-$27M)
• Saints (-$26.3M)

That means these six teams have some work to do to balance the budget. The NFL mandates all teams stay below the salary cap at all times, so these six teams have to get back in the black by the time the 2026 league year starts in March. That means each squad has some decisions to make, and those implications are what we’re exploring in this series. 

The news cycle has obliged this week, with the Miami Dolphins up next just after they were eliminated from the playoffs and made the massive decision to bench QB Tua Tagovailoa. It’s an omen of further changes to come this offseason. 

Miami Dolphins: -$30,402,771

While the Dolphins don’t have a deficit as big as some of the other teams we’ve covered, there’s a case to be made they’re worse off financially than most of the teams ahead of them given the spate of bad contracts they’re going to be paying for. Tagovailoa is top of the list. In a world where he continued to develop into the franchise starter the team paid him to be, a restructure of his $54 million guaranteed salary would have pretty much wiped out Miami’s salary cap deficit. 

Instead, they have few good options going forward with Tagovailoa now that he’s been benched. 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 he is on the team in 2026. Releasing him triggers an NFL-record $99.2 million in dead money, and even a June 1 designation to spread that over two seasons leaves $67.4 million for Tagovailoa on the 2026 cap. 

That’s not good news for a team that already has more than $30 million in dead money on the books in 2026 and will be adding tens of millions to that total this offseason. One way or another, a rebuild and a reckoning is due for the Dolphins next year. But it will be interesting to see if there’s a clash between a new general manager and HC Mike McDaniel, who will be under intense pressure if he avoids being fired for the results of this season. 

Youth Movement

There’s no getting around the fact that the Dolphins have to get younger. The core of the team when McDaniel took over in 2022 is either aging or underperforming and a reset is needed. There are just 36 players under contract for next year, despite being in the red. 

Top at the list of potential cuts is WR Tyreek Hill. This upcoming offseason was shaping up to be a potential break point for him and the Dolphins even before he blew up his knee at the end of September. As scheduled, he’s due $35 million from Miami, but none of it is guaranteed and Hill is not going to play a snap on his contract as currently constructed. 

Hill and super agent Drew Rosenhaus had left the door open to some sort of resolution with the Dolphins to stay on a reduced number, as Hill seems to enjoy living in Miami. But judging by his immediate reaction to the news about Tagovailoa being benched, Hill might be seeking a more competitive environment. The feeling might be mutual from the Dolphins’ end, as the off-field vibes continued to pile up in a bad way over the past year. There’s a non-zero chance Hill could be suspended due to allegations in a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife. 

Cutting Hill saves the Dolphins a pile of cash and $23.65 million in cap savings, getting them most of the way out of the hole. It also nearly doubles their current dead money bill by adding another $28 million. Two more cuts seem probable: S Minkah Fitzpatrick and K Jason Sanders. 

The Dolphins traded for Fitzpatrick as part of the Jalen Ramsey trade, and while he’s been fine this year, the architect of that deal — former GM Chris Grier — was fired. Fitzpatrick is owed $15.6 million in cash next season with no guarantees, a significant number for a 30-year-old safety. Cutting him saves just $5.8 million in cap space because Grier restructured his deal after the trade, but at this point, the cash savings are just as vital to the team’s long-term financial flexibility. 

Sanders went down with a hip injury in August that was only supposed to sideline him a month, but instead, he just now returned to practice on Wednesday. Miami signed Riley Patterson to fill in and he’s acquitted himself well, making 24 of 26 attempts, including two of three from beyond 50 yards, and 28 of 29 extra points. While Sanders has a much bigger leg, attempting 14 kicks from 50-plus in 2024 alone and making 12 of them, he’s been less accurate than Patterson by multiple percentage points and turned 30 last month. Cutting him would save nearly $4 million. 

The last cut candidate worth discussing is OLB Bradley Chubb. The former top-five pick by the Broncos back in 2018, Chubb missed the entire 2024 season with a torn ACL suffered late in an excellent 2023 season. Back healthy this year, Chubb has 6.5 sacks in 14 games and was a subject of interest ahead of the trade deadline due to his uncertain future in Miami. The guarantees on his deal have expired and none of his $20 million 2026 compensation is guaranteed. 

The Dolphins already got Chubb, who turns 30 in June, to take a pay cut this past year, reducing the bill by a little over $9 million. His appetite for a second cut might not be there, not with the Dolphins entering a challenging phase. But while he’s still been one of their best defensive players, it could be hard for the Dolphins to justify that salary for his current production. 

A cut would save $20 million in cash and add another $7.3 million in cap space (against $23.8 million in dead money) but it would also leave the Dolphins perilously thin at edge rusher. A unit that started the year as a strength with Chubb, Jaelan Phillips, Chop Robinson and Matt Judon would suddenly be a major hole with just Robinson left. Phillips was traded at the deadline to the Eagles in anticipation of Miami not being able to match his market, and Judon was cut yesterday after making minimal impact. 

It’s clear the Dolphins just have to grit their teeth and take their medicine to some extent next year, paying for the sins of how this roster was constructed over the past few years. But how much medicine McDaniel wants to take when he’s potentially coaching for his job is an open question. If the Dolphins don’t want to cut their way out of the mess they find themselves in, they have to explore other alternatives. 

Restructure Candidates

Cuts and restructures are the two prime ways teams free up and move salary cap space around. One problem the Dolphins will have if they want to avoid cutting players, however, is that they don’t have a lot of deals that can be altered to create space. Big contracts for WR Jaylen Waddle and DT Zach Sieler are already structured in a way to maximize cap savings in 2026 — pre-restructured basically. Outside of that, the only deals that could move the needle are for LT Austin Jackson, LB Jordyn Brooks and C Aaron Brewer. 

Restructuring those three contracts would add around $14 million in cap space. All three players probably qualify as core pieces at this stage, and the money pushed into future years shouldn’t be especially burdensome. They could be restructured regardless of how the Dolphins approach the offseason. 

But in a scenario where Miami cuts Hill, Sanders and Fitzpatrick while trying to find a way to keep Chubb, these moves would only put the Dolphins in the neighborhood of $18 million to work with in 2026. That’s $18 million not just to fill out the roster with another 15 players but to try and find upgrades to improve on this past year’s squad. It’s not a winning hand. 

It’s why we could see the Dolphins explore some creative solutions. 

The Tua Conundrum

A lot hinges on how the Dolphins decide to approach Tagovailoa in 2026 now that he’s been benched. For now, he’ll be moved to third string and won’t play, which is a potential tell in and of itself. The Dolphins owe him $54 million no matter what, so there are two potential paths this could take. Miami could pay him to go away like the Broncos did with Russell Wilson, using a June 1 cut to manage the dead money and turning the page with a new passer for McDaniel to mold. 

They could also keep him, like the Falcons did with Kirk Cousins this past year. Atlanta reasoned that they needed a backup and as long as they were paying Cousins the money anyway, they might as well get some utility. Keeping him preserved the option for a trade, though the Falcons were never willing to eat enough of the tab to make it happen. And it worked because of how professionally Cousins handled the situation, backing up the player who was shockingly drafted to replace him. 

In the second scenario, the Dolphins would be potentially leaving the door open for Tagovailoa to play well and find his way back to the lineup, making this somewhat akin to what the Panthers did with Bryce Young, albeit on a more elongated timeline. The relationship between McDaniel and Tagovailoa is a critical variable here. McDaniel was hired to get Tagovailoa back on track, and there were moments where that looked like a smashing success. The Dolphins forked over that $50 million per year contract in part because of McDaniel’s endorsement of Tagovailoa. Now that McDaniel has benched Tagovailoa, where do the two men stand in each other’s eyes? 

IF the Dolphins do keep Tagovailoa on the roster in 2026, there’s a case to be made that they should restructure his contract. They owe him the money no matter what, it’s just a matter of when it hits their books. Because the NFL salary cap is projected to grow every year, a dollar on the cap today is worth more than a dollar on the cap tomorrow, as it accounts for a greater percentage. This is one of the philosophies that undergirds how teams like the Eagles manage the salary cap. 

Because the money is guaranteed, a restructure won’t impact the dead money total the Dolphins are liable for with Tagovailoa — just the timing. Restructuring his contract saves $30.4 million in cap space in 2026. If the Dolphins cut him in 2027 after that, it would still be $74.8 million in dead money, but in a year where the salary cap is higher and the Dolphins could better absorb that hit, either all at once or with a June 1 designation. 

The Dolphins could even restructure Tagovailoa and cut him anyway. It would still be for a record $99 million in dead money but rather than the lion’s share hitting the books in 2026, the bonus proration wouldn’t all hit until 2027. A restructure would also make Tagovailoa a more tradable asset, as a new team would be responsible for just his remaining base salary. 

These are all things that a new GM will have to sort through with current Dolphins cap wizard Brandon Shore, who’s reportedly taken on more influence in the wake of Grier’s firing and could be retained in a prominent role. While the Tagovailoa contract is going to go down as a massive blunder and a cautionary tale any time teams are evaluating whether to extend their own quarterbacks, the Dolphins can’t just mope for a year about how their hands are tied. They have to find a way forward, and this could be an option they pursue.