Phinsider Question Of The Day 05/27/2021

As most NFL and Miami Dolphins fans are aware of by now, the 2021 season was the first time since the league implemented a hard salary cap rule for teams that the cap number actually shrunk versus going up. This was of course a direct result of lost revenues by teams last season due to Covid, which either shut stadiums all together to fan attendance or at the bare minimum limited the number of fans that could attend each game. Now with most of the future television contracts having been re-signed, for an, as usual, new record amount, the NFL salary cap is set to again increase for the 2022 season.

To that end, the NFL Players Association and the NFL have come to an agreement on a salary cap ceiling for the 2022 season. Meaning that depending on this season's revenues the cap can only rise to that amount for one year before returning to an amount based on actual revenues earned the previous season, giving them a valuation to base expected revenues for the current season at had on. My only guess of why the union agreed to this at all is to allow the owners to recoup some of the losses that they experienced during the 2020 season which was played under a cap number that did not take into account the massive losses that the individual team's wold take due to the massive loss in attendance.

For comparison, last season was played under a 198.2 million dollar cap number. This season the cap dropped 15.7 million for this season to 182.5 million dollars. The ceiling set by the two sides for 2022 is 208.2 million dollars. This is a modest increase of 10 million over the 2020 season but would represent almost a 14% increase from this upcoming season to the next. This should help teams at least have some sort of an estimate of what kind of money they will have to spend for the 2022 season even if the increase falls a bit short of the 208.2 million mark.

This will be helpful to a team like our Dolphins who have a roster made up of young guys who will eventually need new contracts or need to be extended. Some will never see their second contract either because they wind up working their way out of the team's long-term plans or their expected price tag is too much compared to a similar player that costs the team much less money. There are also others that will be let go due to injuries or because they somehow find a way to otherwise wear out their welcome with the team. Others of course will be held onto and extended. Some will get short deals but the guys that the front office sees as the core of the long-term future for this team are likely to get more lucrative long-term deals.

You can go HERE to see the current salary and contract status of every player currently under contract with the Dolphins. Over The Cap is a site that every football fan should have added to their favorites anyway as it’s the most user-friendly site to track where your team is at any given time with salaries and the cap as well as having a great built-in calculator that allows you to play with various scenarios with different signed players to see how that affects the cap in the now and in the future.

So tonight’s Phinsider Question Of The Day is of the current players under contract which ones would you like to see the Miami Dolphins look to extend or give more long term deals to given what we know about where the team stands now with the cap and where the league as a whole is headed revenue-wise from here on out?

Please give us your thoughts below-

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