The Miami Dolphins, thanks to some help on Wednesday from the NFL, are back under the salary cap with three weeks to go until the new league year begins.
However, the Dolphins don't have much room to work with when it comes to actually adding anyone, as they are just $1.563 million under the cap, per OverTheCap.com. As such, contract restructures and/or player releases are still surely to come for part of the roster.
A candidate for a restructure could be QB Tua Tagovailoa, given his large base salary and the amount of room he could create. How much 2025 cap space could Miami open through a restructure? Let's take a look.
First, we're talking about restructuring his base salary, which is $25,046,000 in 2025, per Spotrac. Since Tua has 5 years of service time, his league-minimum base salary would be $1,170,000. If Miami lowers his base to that and converts the rest of it to signing bonus, that would leave $23,876,000 converted.
That $23,876,000 can then be prorated over a maximum of 5 seasons. Broken down over 5 years, that's $4,775,200 per year.
As such, if you take the $1,170,000 base salary and add the first pro-rated year of $4,775,200, that creates a number of $5,945,200 for 2025. In summary, that would reduce his cap figure by $19,100,800 (from the previous number of $25,046,000). When you add in his other contract figures beyond salary that count towards his cap number - roster/game bonus, option bonus proration, existing pro-rated signing bonus before the restructure, and workout bonus - his final cap number for 2025 would come to $20,345,200, down from the current $39,446,00.
Miami already created void years into 2029 and 2030 for the payout of a prorated option bonus included in Tua's contract, so the new prorated amount for the restructure would stretch into that 2029 void year (2025-2029).
Got all that?
Kidding aside, that would, as they say, kick the can down the road a ways, and the bill will come due at some point, but it would give Miami some significant space if they chose to go all in here and try to make a push to put the best possible product on the field. It would also make it tougher to move on from Tua in the near future, as that would tie up more potential dead money for years down the road.
However, there's no sign that Miami is anything but committed to Tua for now and in the future. As such, that commitment could help Miami in a big way to field a more competitive team in 2025.
