New Contract Makes Ramsey Deal Even Better
That the Miami Dolphins won the Jalen Ramsey trade from a pure football standpoint already was a given, but the trade looks even better after a report outlining what they did to minimize Ramsey's effect on their salary cap this year.
Ramsey still will get $35.5 million in guarantees, with $26.7 million of that in salary (and roster bonus) and $8.8 million in bonuses.
As things stand right now, it's almost a given the Dolphins will revisit his contract again next offseason because he currently has a $28.4 million cap hit for 2024.
Ramsey currently has the 15th-highest cap number for 2023, according to overthecap.com, just below Austin Jackson's $4.3 million and Durham Smythe's $4.2 million.
The trade became official Wednesday with the start of the new league year: Ramsey to the Dolphins in exchange for tight end Hunter Long and a third-round pick (77th overall) in the 2023 NFL draft.
Here was Rams head coach Sean McVay's statement related to the trade:
"Jalen has been instrumental in our team's success during his time with the Rams and it was a privilege to be able to coach such an elite competitor and teammate. His versatility, intelligence, and leadership put him in a class of his own. We will always be grateful for his impact on our organization and for his efforts in the Los Angeles community."
DOLPHINS BUSY WITH RESTRUCTURING STAR CONTRACTS
Ramsey became the fourth high-profile player whose contract the Dolphins restructured to bring down the cap number, following Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead and Bradley Chubb.
As it stands right now, Byron Jones has the highest 2023 cap number at $18.3 million, but $13.6 million of that will disappear on June 1 after the Dolphins officially release him Wednesday.
The next-highest number is the $17.2 million for defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah, but he hasn't restructured yet and there's a good chance he won't be because he's not a slam-dunk must-have player and the Dolphins could let him loose next offseason fairly painlessly.
DOLPHINS WILL HAVE LOT OF CONTRACT WORK TO DO IN 2024
What all the restructures have done, in addition to allowing the Dolphins to build a Super Bowl-caliber roster (or close to it) is create a lot of very large cap numbers for 2024, which will create another very busy offseason of money maneuvering and cap juggling by GM Chris Grier and Brandon Shore, the team's senior VP of football and business administration.
The Dolphins already have six players with cap numbers topping $20 million for 2024, per overthecap.com: Tyreek Hill at $31 million, Ramsey at $28.4 million, Chubb at $26.9 million, Xavien Howard at $25.9 million, Tua Tagovailoa at $23.2 million, and Terron Armstead at $20.6 million.
Some quick math shows those six players would account for $156 million of cap space, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out more restructures are on the horizon.
But for now, the Dolphins found a way to acquire an All-Pro talent like Ramsey and create additional cap space to keep building their roster.
In the short term, that's borderline brilliant.
