Xavien Howard Reports To Dolphins Training Camp

Miami Dolphins CB Xavien Howard officially arrived at training camp on Tuesday.

https://twitter.com/MiamiDolphins/status/1419971069692231681

Howard is interested in reworking his current five-year, $75 million deal that still has four years remaining, but apparently isn’t interested in getting fined $50,000 a day for holding out.

Howard reportedly understands how little leverage he has with four years remaining on the deal. A few teams were sniffing around a potential trade for him this offseason, so it will be interesting to see if the Dolphins can patch things up during camp. 

Howard signed an extension in 2019 that at the time made him the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback at just over $15 million a year.

Since then, however, five other players have jumped past Howard, including fellow Dolphins CB Byron Jones, and the current bar is $20 million a year for Rams CB Jalen Ramsey. 

Howard has been a legitimate candidate for defensive player of the year the past two seasons and is using that performance to seek a raise. 

Howard, 28, is a former second-round pick of the Dolphins back in 2016. He was in the final year of his four-year, $6,128,038 rookie deal and set to make a base salary of $1,285,641 for the 2019 season when he agreed to a five-year, $76.5 million extension that included $46 million guaranteed with Miami.

Howard is set to make base salaries of $12.075 and $12.375 million over the next two seasons. 

In 2020, Howard appeared in all 16 games for the Dolphins and recorded 51 tackles, one forced fumble, 10 interceptions and 20 pass defenses. Pro Football Focus had him rated as the No. 2 corner out of 121 qualifying players. 

We’ll have more on Howard as the news is available.