2026 Offseason Preview: Miami
The Miami Dolphins are preparing for a major rebuild
statbutler.com will be releasing offseason previews for all 32 teams in the lead up to free agency. Feel free to share any of the text/visuals below with attribution. All underlying contract data was collected by overthecap.com.
Recent Team History
The Dolphins missed the playoffs again in 2025. It was their worst season since 2019, though I would argue expectations were lower in this season than in the past.
2025 Season
Miami began the season 1-6 and rebounded to close out the year with 7 wins. The slow start was apparently enough to fire general manager Chris Grier, who had logged a series of poor drafts in recent years. After being eliminated from the playoffs in Week 15, Tua Tagovailoa was relegated from starter to the emergency QB role. Head coach Mike McDaniel held on until the end of the season, but was eventually fired as well. During the season, the team traded away top pass rusher Jaelan Phillips to Philadelphia and lost star receiver Tyreek Hill to a season-ending injury in their Week 4 win on Monday Night Football against New York.
New Brain Trust
New GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and new head coach Jeff Halfley were hired from Green Bay to begin Miami’s coming transformation. Halfley was a defensive coordinator with the Packers and will bring Sean Duggan with him to take that role in Miami. Bobby Slowik, who served on McDaniel’s staff in 2025, was promoted to offensive coordinator. Prior to that, Slowik was the offensive coordinator in Houston for two years.
Returning Players
Note that all restructures below are assumed to be max restructures. This means that the team will use void years to prorate cash across up to five seasons, minimizing amount that will hit the current year’s salary cap.
For players who are not vested veterans, I’ve replaced information about the player’s active contract with a description of the team control remaining until the player can become an unrestricted free agent.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Dolphins have a few excellent pieces, but otherwise are in need of significant help. Center Aaron Brewer was a 2020 UDFA who played every position on the line at Texas State. In 2023, the Titans moved him to center where he was able to parlay his success into a free agent contract with the Dolphins. This season was a true breakout year for him. Assuming Tyreek Hill is traded or is unable to return to form, Jaylen Waddle will become the crown jewel of this offense. De’Von Achane is entering a contract year, but he’s likely among the very back running backs in football.
Miami entered the season with a solid group up front and a hapless secondary. As mentioned previously, Jaelan Phillips was traded at the deadline. Among the defensive front that was retained, Bradley Chubb had one of his worst seasons after missing all of 2024 with his 2023 ACL tear, Chop Robinson followed up a promising rookie year with a dud, Zach Sieler showed signed of aging, and 2025 first round pick Kenneth Grant had an underwhelming showing as a rookie. On the plus side Jordyn Brooks had another great year stopping the run at linebacker and it looks like the Dolphins got the better of the Steelers in the summer trade that swapped Jalen Ramsey for Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Expiring Contracts
While Miami started the year with a serious deficiency in the secondary, they were able to cobble together a few surprising performers, like Rasul Douglas. Douglas will be 32 at the start of next season, but put together a great year. Jack Jones stepped in as the corner opposite Douglas and did well for a late addition. Darren Waller was another player who had some positive moments. It’s not clear if any of these surprises will translate to next season.
Tua Tagovailoa
The future of Tua Tagovailoa’s contract is really the most complicated piece of how Miami moves forward. Understanding the flow of cash is always the best place to start putting the puzzle together. Tagovailoa is due to earn $55m in 2026 and $54m of that is already fully guaranteed. He has another $3m of his salary next year that will vest into a full guarantee on March 15th. If cut, Miami would only relieve itself of $4m. My initial thought was that it positions him well to take on a backup role. However, there is a catch. The contract already has an additional $17m of 2027 salary that is guaranteed for injury. If Tagovailoa were to finish the 2026 season with an injury, he would earn that money when cut. Given his unique injury history, this is a real risk. It serves as a poison pill to his contract that makes playing him or trading him a risk.
Tagovailoa could negotiate the injury guarantee out of his contract. This could open the door for a trade or make Tua a real option to play for Miami again. If he is unwilling to do that, there are a few options. Tagovailoa could remain on the roster and the Dolphins could opt not to play him to avoid his injury guarantee. The team would need to pay an extra $1m this year and guarantee $3m next year, but they’d also be able to spread out his cap hit into the 2028 season. The cap hits would be something like $26m / $27m / $50m over the three years if the Dolphins did a max restructure this year and then designated him for a post-June 1st release a year from now. Another option is to max restructure Tua now, and designate him as a post-June 1st release. This would make Tua’s 2026 cap hit $26m until June 1st, when it would drop to $25m as dead cap. The dead cap hit in 2027 would be $74m. Both paths allow the team to exit other high value contracts right away without spending additional cash on them.
Projected Tags & Cuts
I’m not including ERFA eligible players here (expiring contracts with less than 3 accrued seasons), as they can either sign a league minimum contract or the team can allow them to leave.
There are a number of contracts that Miami needs to drop. The biggest is Tyreek Hill who is in the final year of his once record-breaking extension. He’s due $36m with no guarantees. It’s simply not a deal that makes sense given his injury. Bradley Chubb similarly is due to earn $20.2m non-guaranteed. I think he’s a cut after his drop off this season. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see James Daniels stick after missing basically a full season following his $24m/3yr deal signed last offseason, but under a new GM, I think he’s more likely to be dropped than not. Jason Sanders is in the same boat. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine rounds out the expected cap casualties that I am projecting.
The Salary Cap
In the image below, each blue bordered rectangle is equivalent to the cap hit of a single player. Within that rectangle, there are more rectangles that break down the player’s cap hit. Areas colored green can be pushed entirely into a future cap years via max restructure. Areas with vertical bars are “locked in” and the team cannot open them up by releasing the player. They represent either fully guaranteed cash that hasn’t been earned yet or remaining proration from cash earned in previous league years.
Cutting Tyreek Hill will get the Dolphins to cap compliance, but I suspect the only way for them to have a serious offseason is for the team to also restructure Tua’s contract. It’s a tough situation that is exacerbated by needing to exit a number of contracts simultaneously.
With just $28.9m in projected excess cap space (the amount I think the team can dedicate to extensions and free agents), Miami is in a extremely undesirable position. There is still a large chunk of Tua’s cap hit that will need to hit the cap in the next year or two and just not enough resources to fill the holes. It’ll take some time to get things back on track.
Draft Capital
Save for their 6th round selection that produced the rights to Darren Waller via a pick swap with the Giants, Miami holds all of their own picks in this draft plus a pair of extra third round picks netted from the Phillips trade and a 2025 draft day trade back with Houston. This collection of picks is the 7th best war chest in this draft on trade based draft pick value chart.