The NFL business continues to boom like never before — and franchises like the Miami Dolphins will benefit the most for it.

No, I’m not talking about benefitting with the most on-field success. That title will be reserved for either the Seattle Seahawks or the New England Patriots next weekend for Super Bowl 60. No, teams that have been a little too reckless with their spending in years past are the ones that will benefit from the NFL’s annual boom of business the most, because it opens the door for them to expedite the process of getting out from underneath the kind of contracts that could otherwise suffocate a team. The NFL sent out a salary cap memo for the 2026 season and the early returns are good news for the Dolphins.

NFL’s salary cap memo for 2026 offers fast track to accounting reset for the Dolphins

The projected 2026 salary cap, per Tom Pelissero, is expected to land between $301.2 and $305.7 million. The growth rate isn’t quite the literal definition of “exponential” but we’re RAPIDLY accelerating the cap ceiling thanks to monster dollars flooding in across the league for partnerships, betting, fantasy sports, television deals, and more.

What does this mean for the Dolphins? The higher it goes, the more flexibility Miami is going to have in shaking loose from contracts such as WR Tyreek Hill, EDGE Bradley Chubb (if they want), and yes — QB Tua Tagovailoa.

Miami does get the opportunity to roll over whatever salary cap they did not use in 2025, as well. According to the final produced salary cap report from the NFLPA for 2025, the Dolphins had $1.221 million in unused 2025 cap space that would then be added on top of the final number that the league settles on. That decision should be expected right around the NFL Combine at the beginning of March.

2026 current Miami Dolphins
salary cap commitment leaders

QB Tua Tagovailoa: $56,267,647
WR Tyreek Hill: $51,134,044
EDGE Bradley Chubb: $31,202,739 cap
SAF Minkah Fitzpatrick: $18,849,000 cap
OT Austin Jackson: $15,389,116 cap

If it lands at the top of the projection, at $305.7 million, Miami’s individual cap ceiling would be pushing just underneath $307 million for the 2026 season. Some teams across the league will be carrying over much more in unused 2025 cap, which will only further increase their spending power for whatever free agents hit the market.

Miami’s offseason plan is certainly going to involve some free agents — the team is losing more than 20 players to unrestricted free agency. But the deep end of the pool is almost certainly not in the cards for the Dolphins in 2026. That’s fine. Right now, we can all pull for the high end of the cap projection for 2026. That would allow the 2026 purge to be as painless as possible. We can pick up the pieces and move the rest forward from there.

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