If, as it appears, the Dolphins will be moving on from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa after the 2025 season, the most obvious offramp entails cutting him on the first day of the 2026 league year with a post-June 1 designation. That would trigger a $99.2 million cap charge to be split over two years, with $55.4 million applying to 2026 and $43.8 million landing in 2027.
A trade before June 1 would result in a 2026 cap charge of $65.2 million, plus whatever portion of his $55 million total compensation package the Dolphins would assume in order to make a deal happen. The more Miami pays, the more they could get (in theory) from a new team.
Of course, they’d first have to find a team that wants to trade for him.
There’s another approach, one that the Texans used in 2017. They could send his full $55 million contract for 2026, with $54 million guaranteed, to a new team along with one or more draft picks.
It was the Brock Osweiler solution for Houston. The Texans unloaded $16 million in guaranteed pay onto the Browns, with Cleveland getting a second-round pick. The payment accounted for 9.5 percent of the 2017 salary cap of $167 million.
If the salary cap increases from $279.2 million in 2025 to $300 million in 2026 (in 2025, it bumped by $23.8 million over 2024), the $54 million in guarantees would count for 18 percent of the 2026 cap. That’s a lot for a new team to absorb, and it would require a lot more than a second-round pick to get a new team to take on the obligation. Especially if (like the Browns with Osweiler) the new team has no intent of keeping Tua on the 53-man roster.
There’s another way, one that would make the Osweiler vibes less obvious. The Rams employed that strategy in 2021, when sending two first-round picks and a third-round pick with Jared Goff to the Lions for Matthew Stafford. As one G.M. explained it at the time, the Rams essentially gave up a one and a three for Stafford, while adding a first-rounder in order to free themselves from the guarantees in Goff’s contract.
All things considered, it will be difficult for the Dolphins to pull off a Tua trade. The biggest question will be whether another team wants him. And that won’t be known until after the coaching carousel comes to rest, with new head coaches and new offensive coordinators in place.
Some coaches won’t want Tua, based solely on the measurables. Others may be concerned about the durability. Others may be troubled by the periodic turnovers. Still, it only takes one coach to believe that he can get the good out of Tua while minimizing the bad.
For now, the signs are pointing to a release of Tua’s contract with a post-June 1 designation. And then he’ll embark on free agency, with the ability to take the league minimum on a one-year deal for $1.3 million and to stick the Dolphins for the rest of the $54 million he’ll make, whether he’s on the Dolphins, on another team, or not playing at all.
That’s the likely bottom line for a new team. One year, $1.3 million. For a guy who received a $53.1 million contract just last year from the Dolphins.
