11:13pm: Willis will see both his 2026 and 2027 base salaries fully guaranteed, SI.com’s Albert Breer reports. A $2MM roster bonus is due in March 2028. Year 3 will have a nonguaranteed salary. Still, the Dolphins will be paying the Tagovailoa dead money and Willis’ fully guaranteed compensation over the next two years.
11:51am: Despite taking on a record-setting dead money sum from the impending Tua Tagovailoa release, the Dolphins will be the team that signs off on Malik Willis‘ second contract.
Willis is reuniting with Jon-Eric Sullivan and Jeff Hafley in Miami, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, who reports the sides agreed on a three-year deal worth $67.5MM. Willis will receive $45MM guaranteed at signing.
While not a $30MM-per-year contract like recent rumors indicated, Willis will still cash in via that nice guarantee number. This figures to provide at least a two-year runway for Willis in Miami, which will spread the Tagovailoa dead cap hit through 2027. Still, a $99.2MM dead cap hit over that span and a $20MM-plus QB salary will be an interesting route to take. A bit of a smokescreen effort may have taken place on the Dolphins’ part, as Sullivan pointed to the team’s cap situation making it difficult to win the Willis sweepstakes.
In terms of AAV, Willis is set to hover in unoccupied territory. This number comes in south of the Baker Mayfield–Sam Darnold tier but well north of backup money. The full guarantee likely became a strong sweetener for the Jordan Love backup, who drew interest from a few teams — the Browns, Cardinals and Steelers among them. Presenting a strange free agency profile with six career starts, Willis ranked seventh on PFR’s top 50 free agents list. He will do much better than Justin Fields in terms of fully guaranteed money; the Jets gave their 2025 starter at $30MM guarantee.
Fields’ $20MM-per-year deal is the only QB contract in this neighborhood, but the Jets are about to terminate that deal. Soon, Willis’ $22.5MM AAV number will be the only QB pact in between Cam Ward‘s rookie salary ($12.21MM) and Mayfield’s current $33.3MM AAV.
Mike Vrabel deemed Willis unplayable late in the 2022 season, after the third-round rookie looked erratic in his short time at the helm. The Titans drafted Will Levis in 2023 and parked Willis behind he and Ryan Tannehill. A new Titans coaching staff signed off on trading the Jon Robinson-era draftee to the Packers for a low-end return in summer 2024. Willis became needed immediately, with Love going down with an injury in Week 1 of that season.
Matt LaFleur customized the offense to suit Willis’ skillset, and the effort created a market. Willis ran his start count from three to six in Green Bay, putting up eye-popping (and unsustainable) numbers. He compiled a 6:0 TD-INT ratio in Green Bay, having completed 70 of 89 attempts at a college-y 12.1 yards per pass. Willis also averaged 6.2 yards per rush (29/261/3). Willis will now work under Bobby Slowik, who will run a LaFleur-type scheme. Both are Kyle Shanahan disciples.
With Willis committing to Miami within an hour of the legal tampering period’s outset, other QB-needy teams will not need to authorize higher-end guarantees — most likely, at least. But some of those teams will be left scrambling, as a host of needs exist on this year’s market. That helped inflate Willis’ value despite the six career starts.
The Dolphins gave Tagovailoa six years but erred by giving him a $53.1MM-per-year extension in 2024. The Mike McDaniel passer showed tremendous promise as an accurate thrower, but concussions gave way to inconsistency for the left-hander. Miami benched Tagovailoa late in McDaniel’s tenure and was never seriously linked to retaining him — despite what would have been a easier route contractually — this offseason. Sullivan will take a risk with Willis due to his limited sample size, but he and Hafley certainly have plenty of information on him from the sides’ two-year overlap in Wisconsin.
Wow. I figured he was Arizona bound and the Dolphins were going scorched earth tank again. It’s a lot of guaranteed money for a guy with so little track record, but the annual average is very low for a starting quarterback not on a rookie deal. Curious to see how this one goes.
Nah Miami always made most sense
Wow! With the lafleur connection and the cap space, i thought he was for sure going to the Cardinals, I guess Arizona is full on tanking for one of those QB’s in next years draft
22.5 AAV on a short term deal.
thats peanuts compared to the going rate for QBs. especially given the current shortage.
Had him right between 24-20 depending if 2 or 3.
I was hoping the Falcons would snag him. Good for Malik getting a starting opportunity, I hope he succeeds.
No idea how this team makes one bad move after another. So be it.
Huh? Getting rid of a bad QB and signing a starting QB for way under the current going rate for starting QB’s is a “bad move”?
This is a TWO-year contract for basically $30+ million total for a STARTING QB. This is a huge win for Miami.
@ohmy: You’re calling him a ‘starting QB’ like it’s a fact. It isn’t. He’s started three games in the last two years and six total in his four years in the league. This is a huge *gamble* for Miami, not necessarily a ‘win’.
Well, he’s going to be qb1 for Miami @rct so he is a starting qb one way or another.
Either way, I don’t know how Dolphins fans are angry at this move. You released Tua, you had no qb. You are taking a flyer on someone who has showed some promise all be it in limited opportunity. If it doesn’t work out you can get out of the contract for nothing like next year. If it does work, you’ve got a starting qb on one of the cheapest deals in the league if not the cheapest that isn’t a rookie scale deal.
This is a no brainer for the dolphins to take a shot on.
@rct You DO know that Miami cut their STARTING QB, right? They did NOT sign Willis to be a backup or third option.
Try keeping up with news regarding the NFL the past few days.
The most interesting thing is trying to figure out how Miami is going to manage their cap with the massive dead money of both Hill and Tua. Between the 2 this year looking at close to $90 million dollars. That’s 1/3 of the cap.
Ugh, this is so uninspiring. I hope I’m wrong but this dude should not be getting 30+/ year. He has what, 3 games of good tape? This feels like the AJ Feely signing all over again, except Willis having scrambiling/rushing edge. This franchise is so difficult to root for. They won’t be able to fill a competitive roster, why waste what little cap space you have on an unproven passer when next years draft is potentially loaded
Well even if it is, they need a bridge QB next year.
If you look at it that way, it makes total sense. You take a chance on a guy who is still young enough to be your franchise QB, and if it doesn’t work out well you still have a bridge QB so your rookie doesn’t have to start right away.
He’s not getting 30+ mil.
He isn’t getting “30+ year”. He’s getting that over TWO years. This will work out much for Miami than the always overrated Justin Fields did in Pittsburgh.
Remember delusional bear fans thought they would get THREE FIRST ROUND draft picks as a START for Fields? We do….
They did not sign Feely. They traded for him.
Why not just play Ewers to see what you have and reset the rest of the roster ahead of a Rich 2027 draft? It seems like a massive overpay on top of releasing Tua
There was a reason why Ewers was a 7th round pick..
He’s NOT a starting caliber QB in this league. When he was starting at Texas there were times that he was hard to watch and you could see he didn’t have the talent to start at the next level (NFL)
That should not make them desperate enough to sign Willis. He at times has shown he is not a NfL starter either. But not my team not my circus to really worry about if it all blows up again.
TP- Wasn’t Brock Purdy the very last guy picked in the 7th round. Didn’t Tom Brady go in the 6th round? Also, you could see he didn’t have talent when he was in college at Texas? I watched a whole years worth of Anthony Richardson at Florida. He was terrible. He followed primary receivers with his eyes throughout their entire routes, he bounced passes 10 yards from receiver’s, he took off running without checking down to his secondary and tertiary targets, and he did very little to learn the playbook. Yet, he was the 4th guy drafted in the entire body of talent. Teams make mistakes and if the team can find a gem everyone else missed , well good for them. But if they never get to play then we’ll never know how good they can be.
I don’t have a ton of faith he’ll be good but him and waddle should be fun at least
Business is business.
It was always going to be insane money for a guy with six career starts but this is at least slightly less insane than they were talking earlier.
Funny how it ends up being Miami after everybody said they didn’t have the cap space to make it happen.
Best of luck to him. Loved him coming out of Liberty. Tennessee never gave him a real chance.
Liked him in the few games he played for the Packers. Not sure if he is anymore than a stop gap. Not sure about his passing game being complete. I think he has earned the right to have a chance to be a QB1 on some team. Why not the Dolphins who need a rebuild? Something to dream on. Some Packer fans loved him enough to argue the Packers should have kept him and traded Love. I disagree with them.
Big mistake
treading water ..
Lol guess they didn’t learn from the whole Tua contract …. Willis is unproven but hey this is the NFL
ANOTHER, WHAT?
Comparing a $167 million guaranteed contract to a fringe starting QB to a fringe starting QB for a $45 million guaranteed contract is the same thing?
Watched alot of Willis play last season when Love was out. GB ran the ball (and alot) which opened up the WRs for Willis. He played well and made plays when needed to, don’t get me wrong, but he was never tested in critical situations or heavy pass rushes. Also had a very good D behind him. Hopefully he turns out better than a game manager. Time will tell.
“Very good D behind him”….
Ah, NOT after Parsons got hurt. They were terrible under Hafley after the injury. Halfey never made any adjustments once Parsons went down. It was embarrassing how bad he schemed for games. Oh, and there were never any halftime adjustments either.
No one asked you.
Did Willis play when Parsons got hurt? Is your comment relevant to the comment?
Halftime adjustment thing is more a myth than reality lol.
let’s see if Slowik can do with Willis what he could not with Stroud
I don’t have the highest of hopes, partly because Stroud is a very different QB than Willis, but the first year was good under Slowik. I didn’t hold him accountable as the OC for Stroud’s regression, personally.
Willis is probably not going to be a major threat from the pocket, so Miami is really going to have to work on their run game to keep from asking too much from their QB. They could get away with that if the run is effective enough, but that’s not a given right now in the current moment. Willis isn’t that expensive, as it turns out-the dead money will be the biggest limiter until the Dolphins can really rebuild up front.
Interesting to see how he does. While no one can argue his talent level, the knock on him coming out of college was that he couldn’t grasp the playbook, couldn’t read defenses, had a poor work ethic, and to often was able to rely on his athletic ability to make plays in Division II football. It’s why he didn’t play at Auburn and transferred to Liberty. It’s also why he went in the 3rd round to Tennessee and didn’t last long there.
It will be interesting to see if he’s learned anything in the 4 years he’s been in the league and even with a very limited amount of playing time last year filling in for Love.
Willis played in 35 games for Auburn and Liberty at the FBS level between 2017 and 2021. He never played Division II football – and Liberty haven’t had a season at that level since 1988.
Complete fabrication on your part.
FBS is division 1-A football you are correct. It is a tier below Major College Football, so you are correct. However Willis only ‘appeared in 12 games, not starting any, for Auburn throwing a total of 14 passes for 69 yards on his 2 years there. Hardly a lot of playing time and most likely came in mop up duty. He only had 23 starts at Liberty, and you’re right produced good numbers, but remember this is quite a step down from playing in the SEC and the likes of Alabama, LSU, Tennessee and such. Instead he played against Coastal Carolina, and James Madison.
Like I said, no one is questioning his physical talent, and with it he should have dominated lower level opponents, what I said was he lacked the mental skills needed to play top level football. I also said, I hope he learned and grew from his time in the NFL. Otherwise with all the hype generated around draft time on him, he would have gone a lot higher in the draft than the 3rd round to Tennessee.
So I’d like to know where anything I said was ‘total fabrication’?
Mike Vrabel Thought He could not play. Should worry people.
sounds like Willis has even less experience than Anthony Richardson
As a Packer fan, what kind of compensation should the Packers hope to get for this signing?
They were with this kid every day for the past two seasons. They obviously think he has what it takes. I for one have a lot more confidence in Sullivan/Hafley than I ever did with those mopes Grier and McDaniel…….
It is essentially a one-year deal. If he does well then Miami will negotiate a longer term deal down the road. If he isn’t then the Dolphins will be picking in the top five and taking a QB next year.