The Miami Dolphins have begun to clean things up for the 2026 NFL season, and the result is they will likely have a huge amount of dead salary cap money.
The Dolphins on Monday released Tyreek Hill. Though the move saves them $22.8 million against the salary cap, he will cost the team $28.2 million in dead salary cap money.
In addition to releasing Hill, the Dolphins will release pass rusher Bradley Chubb. The move gives the Dolphisn $7.3 million in savings, but Chubb will still count for nearly $24 million in dead cap money.
Between the releases of Hill and Chubb, the Dolphins will have nearly $47 million in dead cap space. Add in the release of guard James Daniels, who will count for $4.8 million in dead cap money, and the Dolphins are up to around $52 million for 2026 being taken up by players who will not be on their roster.
Now that you’ve seen how their dead cap number is $52 million for 2026, you might be wondering how we got to the $120 million figure. That all comes down to Tua Tagovailoa. The Dolphins reportedly would like to trade the former first-round draft pick.
If the Dolphins are unable to trade Tagovailoa, they could look into releasing him and eating the money for 2026. His dead salary cap amount would be around $67 million if they designated him as a post-June 1 release. That would raise their dead cap amount to nearly $120 million for 2026, and also leave them with $31.8 million in dead cap money for Tua in 2027.
The Dolphins could also just keep Tagovailoa for 2026, and then he would only cost around $35 million in dead cap money for 2027 if they were to cut him after next season.
No matter how you slice it, this is a rebuilding year for the Dolphins — one where they will paying a lot of money for players who will not be on their roster.
