Last week I discussed the impending salary cap issues for our Miami Dolphins before the 2024 season. I highlighted the fact that besides being nearly 32.5 million over the projected 2024 cap number the team also had a large list of players that would need to be resigned or replaced before the next season. I then posed the question, “So now the question is who needs to be gone? Who can they possibly trade in the offseason to both give the team cap relief and recover some draft picks to help replace some players that will be lost or that need to be cut to save cap space? Who needs to just be let go no matter what for cap relief?”
Below are some of your thoughts and answers on the issue and the question of the day-
tvegas897 is about as tired of our players being involved in stupid “lack of good judgment” stories as the rest of us!
If the sex video allegations about X are true he will be gone before next year. Why is it that Miami players are always in the news for the wrong reasons? Smh
BxBruce sees some players that might be on the chopping block. I suspect that some of these same players would find themselves on the wrong side of a cut or trade, salary cap issues or not.
Jerome Baker and Cedric Wilson save about $16mil, 1/2 the overage. I could see them being cut. Depending on how they play this year, there can be massive savings on Ogbah and X. If they play well, restructure. If not, move on. Restructuring Hill, Ramsey, Armstead, and Chubb could save a lot of money, too. There are moves to make. Plus, they’ll either have to pay Tua, or not, depending on how this year goes. Lots of room for maneuvering based on 2023 performances. Heck, maybe the whole year blows and it’s rebuilding time again.
sdphinsfan is probably correct on all of these although I could see Ogbah and maybe a couple of others being solid trade bait.
X, Ogbah, and Cedric Wilson. Keion Crossen too. That’s almost $45M in cap savings if it’s done post-June 1st.
Thomas23059 has a solid list of ideas that he clearly took a bit of time to research so thank you for taking the question so seriously. I think he has some solid ideas but I personally hope the team does not try and continue to kick that much money down the road.
There is a lot of talk about this, so here is my take. The figures are from Spotrac, which is hopefully accurate. I’ll just run down the biggest cap hits, and what I think could happen: Tyreek Hill ($31M) - He has a $19 million salary and a dead cap hit in 2026 of $11 million. Would not be surprised to see them make $18M of that salary a bonus and spread it over the 3 remaining seasons. Would save $12 million. Jalen Ramsey ($27M) - He has a salary of $14.5M and an $11M roster bonus. Make those bonuses that can be spread over the remaining 4 years (2 of them fake) and they can save about $18 million. Bradley Chubb ($26.9M) - 2024 salary is $19.75 million. Convert $18 million to a bonus and spread it out over the remaining 4 seasons would save about $13.5 million. Xavien Howard ($25.9M) - Salary is around $15 million, which could be spread over the 4 remaining seasons (1 voidable) of his deal and save about $12 million. I suspect they may do nothing with his though, as that would make it easier to move on after the 2024 season. Tua ($23M) - The Dolphins could use some creative accounting to really bring this down if they want to give him a big extension. I could see a decent length extension with high guarantees, a relatively low signing bonus, and maybe a big roster bonus in 2025. They could easily cut $15 million here. Take a look at Herbert’s deal. That huge contract leaves him with a 2023 cap hit of $8.5 million. With the other scenario, if the team decides it is time to move on, releasing him saves them nothing, but trading him leaves a dead cap of 0. Terron Armstead ($20.6M) - Releasing him costs money. They could do a restructure and save about $8M, but they might prefer to let him play out in 2024 and then release him in 2025 when it would save them $8M. Ogbah ($17.8M) - They save $13.8 million by releasing him. They could save about $7M with a restructuring if he is a star in Fangio’s defense and still save money releasing him in 2025. I could also see them extending him a year or two with a lower salary in those seasons or voidable years and money converted to a bonus to spread it out. They could probably save almost as much in 2024 with an extension as they could releasing him. Jerome Baker ($14.8M) - They save about $10 million if they release him. They can probably save almost that much extending him if he is valuable enough in the defense. Waddle ($8.6M) - They’ll be exercising that 5th-year option for 2025 and looking to extend him. Cedric Wilson ($8.3M) - This is probably the easiest call. They save $7.3M by releasing him. So that is the top 10 salary cap hits of 2024. If they want to continue pushing things down the road they could just release Wilson and then restructure everyone else and take somewhere around $100 million off their salary cap. Suddenly I am not so worried about that bill I keep hearing will be due.
Blaze453 is more in line with my thinking. Knowing that the cap has to be addressed looks to trade guys with value left vs. cutting guys and taking a “dead money” hit or kicking the ball down the road only to eat more dead money at a later date. Also, draft picks, lots of draft picks, and picking well keeps the team out of salary cap hell!
These are salary, cap, and cap reasons, and for some of these guys, I’d rather get something for them by trade then just let them walk. Jerome Baker, X, one of the three defensive tackles (Zach, Sieler, Christian, Wilkins, or Raekwon Davis), Cedrick Wilson, and Emmanuel Ogbah. OG nothing quite fits the system and should be able to get us a mid-round pick. Jerome Baker comes in the trade deadline if AVG has adapted to the inside or Channing Tindall along with the health of our other starter he could afford to trade Baker. Now that’s a big season for us and it doesn’t look like at this point in time we have the depth on the defensive line to trade one of those three but if somehow you, DFA, or somebody we pick up, gives us the ability to trade like a Zack sealer. We should be able to get a premium pick for him. Not only do we have to take care of the now, but give us the best chance to win the Super Bowl. We also have to take a look at the future. The old saying, and I think it came in baseball from branch Rickey I would rather get rid of a guy a year early than a year late. we’re not gonna be able to re-sign all our guys, we’re going to have some Decisions to make next year, and we can use the future draft capital for cheaper depth, and starters
Not a lot of answers in this post but the ones we got were all solid and well-thought-out. Thank you to everyone that took the time to answer the question and add their thoughts.
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