The Miami Dolphins added quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with the fifth pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and signed the former Alabama All-American to a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension in 2024. But Tagovailoa told reporters Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald and Joe Schad of the Palm Beach Post on Monday that moving on from Miami would be fine with him.
“That would be dope,” Tagovailoa said about the chance to play for another NFL team. “I would be good with it.”
The quarterback’s brief exchange at the Dolphins’ training facility was his first with the press since Dec. 17, the day that Miami coach Mike McDaniel announced Tagovailoa had been benched in favor of seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers.
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When healthy, Tagovailoa had served as the Dolphins’ starting quarterback from the sixth game of his rookie season through the 14th contest of the 2025 campaign.
Tagovailoa had the NFL’s best passing-efficiency rating in 2022. In 2023, he led the NFL with 4,624 passing yards and earned Pro Bowl recognition. In 2024, a concussion and a hip injury kept Tagovailoa out of six games, but he placed fourth in the league in average passing yards per game and had the NFL’s highest completion percentage.
Tagovailoa entered the 2025 season with the ninth-best passing-efficiency rating in NFL history among players with at least 2,000 passes – two spots in front of Tom Brady – and a 38-24 record as a starting quarterback.
In 2025, Tagovailoa’s completion rate of 67.7 percent was 5 percent lower, his interception rate more than doubled and he averaged 70.6 fewer passing yards per game than he did the previous season.
Tagovailoa completed 260-of-384 passes for 2,660 yards with 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions for a passing-efficiency rating of 88.5. When he was pulled from the lineup, Tagovailoa had thrown the most interceptions in the NFL and ranked seventh in completion percentage, 17th in passing yards, 16th in touchdown passes and 22nd in passing-efficiency rating.
When Tagovailoa went to the bench, Miami had a 6-8 record on its way to its 25th consecutive season without a playoff victory.
With Ewers starting, the Dolphins won one of their three remaining games as the rookie completed 50-of-75 passes for 569 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions for a passing-efficiency rating of 85.9.
For the last three games of the season, Tagovailoa was designated as Miami’s emergency third quarterback. While he dressed for every game, Tagovailoa could play only if Ewers and Zach Wilson became incapacitated. Ewers played 167 of the Dolphins’ 170 offensive snaps in those contests, with Wilson taking the other three.
Because of his contract, trading or releasing Tagovailoa for a fresh start does not appear to be easy for Miami.
If Tagovailoa is with the Dolphins next season, he’ll cost Miami $57 million. His contract includes a guarantee of $54 million for the 2026 season, and $3 million of his 2027 salary becomes guaranteed if Tagovailoa is on the team’s roster three days after the next free-agency period begins in March.
If the Dolphins release Tagovailoa before then, he will count $99.2 million against their 2026 salary cap – about one-third of the team’s total to spend. Some NFL bookkeeping regulations could reduce that number to $67.4 million in 2026, with the other $31.8 million in dead money kicked down the road to the 2027 salary cap if he’s designated as a June 1 release.
Even if he’s traded, Tagovailoa will count $45.2 million against Miami’s 2026 salary cap.
