{"id":823497,"date":"2026-03-20T17:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823497\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T17:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:21:19","slug":"dolphins-salary-cap-miami-setting-182-million-on-fire-in-2026-dead-cap-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823497\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins salary cap: Miami setting $182 million on fire in 2026 dead-cap spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami Dolphins<\/a> are throwing away a lot of money in 2026. For the first time in NFL<\/a> history, the salary cap is going to be above $300 million, and the Dolphins are burning more than half of that to pay players who aren’t even on their roster.<\/p>\n

Since the start of the new league year on March 11, Miami’s first-year general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan pretty much showed us what his plan is for the 2026 season: He wants to blow things up and start over, which is why the Dolphins are pulling off, essentially, a total reset.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That became pretty clear when the team\u00a0decided to cut<\/a> ties with Tyreek Hill<\/a> back in February in a move that came with a $28.2 million dead cap hit. The Dolphins followed that up in early March<\/a> by dumping Tua Tagovailoa<\/a> in a move that will cost them $99.2 million in dead cap space. Even some players who appeared to be safe — like Jaylen Waddle<\/a> — won’t be returning. Miami traded Waddle\u00a0to the Broncos <\/a>in a move that will leave $26.3 million in dead cap space for the Dolphins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks in large part to those three moves, the Dolphins will take on an NFL-record $182.29 million in dead cap space in 2026, according to Over the Cap<\/a>. That’s the highest number in NFL history. At 60.5%, it’s also the highest percentage of cap space that a team has ever had in dead money. Over the past 13 years, only one team has even used 45% of its cap space on dead money and that came in 2013 with the Raiders<\/a>, who were at 47.1%. The Dolphins’ dead cap number is unprecedented.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The $99.2 million dead cap hit from Tua is the largest by any player in NFL history, but the Dolphins will catch a small break there. Since Tagovailoa is a post-June 1 cut, that means the team can spread the cap hit over two seasons, so they take a $55.4 million hit in 2026 and a $43.8 million hit in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put the Dolphins’ $182.29 million dead cap hit into perspective, that number is more than the ENTIRE salary cap was as recently as 2018, when the cap was at $177.2 million. No other team has ever had more than $130 million in dead cap space, so the Dolphins are truly in a league of their own. Even the 2024 Broncos, who had to deal with a $53 million dead cap hit due to Russell WIlson’s<\/a> contract, only had $89 million in dead cap space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So how do you end up with nearly $200 million in dead cap space? Well, the Dolphins are taking a financial hit from a total of 16 players who won’t be on their roster this year (Numbers via Over the Cap<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Dolphins are taking a dead cap hit of more than $10 million on seven different players, including two — Jalen Ramsey and Terron Armstead — who haven’t played a down for the team since 2024. Armstead and Ramsey both played their final game with Miami during Week 18 of the 2024 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mimi fired Chris Grier as general manager back in October<\/a>, which is what happens when you keep handing out contracts that don’t end up panning out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sullivan has done his best to fix things in his two months on the job, but when you have $180 million in dead cap space, there’s just not much you can do. That means the Dolphins only have about $120 million to spend on players this year, and in that situation, it’s hard to compete. Despite the limited cap space, the Dolphins were able to sign a quarterback in free agency in Malik Willis<\/a>, who got a three-year, $67.5 million deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even with the addition of Willis, the 2026 season still pretty much seems like a throwaway year for the Dolphins, which\u00a0probably explains why they were at the top of our list<\/a> of teams that will likely tank for Arch Manning this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Dolphins are throwing away a lot of money in 2026. For the first time in NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[217,114192,12705,114191,7,113522,8628,95805,216,251,112416,2087,7583,6,3452,114193,1089],"class_list":["post-823497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-dolphins","tag-dolphins","tag-dolphins-free-agency","tag-dolphins-roster","tag-dolphins-spending","tag-football","tag-jaylen-waddle-trade","tag-jeff-hafley","tag-jon-eric-sullivan","tag-miami","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-miami-dolphins-salary-cap","tag-miamidolphins","tag-minkah-fitzpatrick","tag-nfl","tag-tua-tagovailoa","tag-tua-tagovailoa-salary-cap","tag-tyreek-hill"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116262659082039409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}