The Dolphins will part ways with Tua Tagovailoa this offseason, and the entire NFL knows it.
As a result, other teams are not interested in the 27-year-old quarterback as a trade target, per Essentially Sports’ Tony Pauline. There are multiple clubs, however, who would pursue Tagovailoa as a free agent. All they have to do is wait for Miami to cut him.
Moving any draft capital for Tagovailoa to then take on his massive contract – including $54MM in guaranteed compensation in 2026 (via OverTheCap) – is an over-investment in an asset that has rapidly depreciated over the last two seasons. Signing him as a free agent, however, would cost no draft picks and only a veteran-minimum salary, since Tagovailoa would still be receiving his pay from Miami.
Perhaps an enterprising general manager with plenty of extra cap space could take a creative approach.
The Dolphins are just $772K over the 2026 salary cap and badly need to clear space just to fill their roster, sign their draft class, and field a team this season. Releasing Tagovailoa will incur a dead cap charge of $99.2MM, some of which can be pushed into 2027 with a post-June 1 designation. That will still add $11.1MM to their balance sheet this year. That can be offset with a post-June 1 release of Bradley Chubb, but the Dolphins’ new regime probably wants to do more than balance the budget in their first offseason.
Back to that enterprising GM: he could try to acquire Tagovailoa via trade and ask the Dolphins to give him better draft capital in exchange for taking on his massive salary. Miami would not package Tagovailoa and a draft pick in exchange for no return, but perhaps a pick swap upgrading one of the acquiring team’s selections could be equitable.
The new club would have a potential bridge starter, and the Dolphins will have minimized the financial impact of moving on from their former first-round pick. There are also a number of teams that need to spend rather aggressively this offseason to meet the league’s three-year cash spending requirement, and absorbing Tagovailoa’s salary is one way to contribute to that effort.
Still, the most likely path is an outright release followed by Tagovailoa signing for the veteran minimum with a new team. He will likely be looking for a starting opportunity, or at least the potential to earn one.
Or you could wait and sign him for veteran minimum once he’s released.
Thats what the article says….
Exactly like the article says!
And then the article concocts a story about trading him. Which isn’t going to happen.
Yeah, and then they followed it up by saying teams could just wait out a release. So you just repeated the author.
Gasp
Vikings could be a landing spot on league minimum
I think O’Connell would prefer Mac or Kyler. Tua isn’t mobile and his arm is weak sauce
Maybe Mac, I don’t know about Kyler. Perhaps if O’Connell isn’t sold on the work ethic rumors. It seems like O’Connell works very closely with his QBs; if Murray isn’t as committed as he could be, it might not appeal as much. Jones has questions of his own, but I haven’t heard of his motivation being one of them.
In relation to a beleaguered 2026 edition of Tagovailoa, though, there may be some corellary that I may have missed. I don’t know either player, of course, but there’s a possibility that Tua’s struggles recently have led to some of that on his end, too. I dunno.
Hmmmm
Well, an article was just posted about the Vikings having potential interest in Kyler. Maybe it’s just pure speculation, but maybe I’m wrong.
The names being thrown out there seem like names that would be veterans, but also guys that McCarthy could beat in theory and push into a backup role. Cousins or Rodgers aren’t guys who fit that profile (if you sign them, you’re signing them to start), but guys like Murray, Tua, or Richardson could be signed and “lose” a competition to McCarthy.
Personally, I don’t think that the experiment is worth wasting another year of the talent that is currently on the roster (not to mention Flores’ potential departure from coaching the defense), but the names thrown out there make it seem like the Vikings might still be trying to give McCarthy a shot. Just how it seems to me right now, but like I said, this all just pure speculation.
OR………..the Dolphins could just keep him. Even if they make Tua inactive every week and don’t even trust him to hold a clipboard, it’s still $43 million more dollars they’ll have to spend to build their next under-achieving team and just cut him this time next year. It’s insane and there is zero justification for cutting him and absorbing that cap hit. It’s arguably the second worst contract in NFL history (Deshaun Watson takes that honor), so all they’re doing is making it worse. Who knows, maybe they get really lucky and he gets injured during training camp and they can place him on IR for the season or another team suffers a big injury and they can trade him to someone desperate. There’s no good scenario, but cutting him now is the worst one of all.
The “tank for tua” penalties keep rolling in. Lost draft picks, lost out on Tom Brady and Sean Payton, lost a lot of games because tua played and now their in salary cap purgatory for 2years. Be smart dolphins and say all the right things when you field a 2-15 team this year.
This isnt Watson dogging it with the Browns. Tua has won over 40 games with Miami and still has a winning record as starter. Ross screwed up the situation with Payton/Brady, not Tua. The hip still could be a problem but this guy still wants to play. They might as well keep him this year.
We know the perfect landing spot for Tua. J-E-T-S.
lol you want him there Chuck?
Why not? Worth taking a chance for the veteran minimum.
Who else you want in the QB room? I think jets should try to nab Allar
He’s being released just like Kyler. It’s basic math. My prediction is he sits a year or gets a bubblegum contract from the Browns to half ass compete with Gabriel Watson and the chosen one for either a QB1 or QB2
Haha … the Pro Boweler Chosen One!
You know it! According to his fans he’s the Football Messiah lmao
Staying in Miami seems to create their need to find other contracts to shed. Tua could be retained as a backup ‘just in case’ and seems I read previous he wasn’t a problem in the QB room or elsewhere.
Definitely not an envious situation for a new coach yet the guy had to know it’d take some magic to ‘right the ship’
In other news, water is wet.
Signing a player who has been frequently concussed has it’s advantages. He may not remember what year it is and agree to work for 1960 wages 🙂