Diving Into Just How Crazy the Dolphins' Dead Cap Situation Truly Is

By now, it's not a great revelation to point out the immense amount of dead cap space the Miami Dolphins will be carrying in 2026, but it's worth examining just how insane the situation truly is.

For starters, let's point out that dead cap space refers to cap hits for players no longer on the roster as the result of bonuses that were paid out but spread out over several years.

The Dolphins currently stand second in the NFL in dead cap money at somewhere around $108 million, but that number is going to jump to more than $182 million when Tua Tagovailoa's $55.4 million and Bradley Chubb's $11 million get on the books in June following their post-June 1 releases.

To illustrate how crazy that number is, the Dolphins will have more than 60.5 percent of the salary cap limit of $301.2 million devoted to players no longer on the roster.

The Dolphins will blow away, according to Spotrac, the previous record of $127.7 million of dead cap space by the Houston Texans in 2022 that featured $16.2 million going to QB Deshaun Watson.

The Dolphins are one of three teams with more than $100 in dead cap space in 2026 along with the New Orleans Saints ($116M) and the New York Jets ($104.2).

This will be the first time since Spotrac began tracking this that the Dolphins will lead the league in dead cap space, though they finished second in 2011, 2015 and 2019. For the record, the Dolphins finished 6-10, 6-10 and 5-11 in those seasons.

The Dolphins' previous high in dead cap space came in 2019 when they carried $79.1 million, led by QB Ryan Tanneill's $18.4 million after he was traded to the Tennessee Titans that offseason and DT Ndamukong Suh's $13.1 million as the remainder of the signing bonus he got in 2015 before getting released after the 2017 season.

HOW THE DOLPHINS GOT HERE

The Dolphins' list of players who carry dead cap space for 2026 includes 31 names ranging from Tua Tagovailoa to offensive lineman Ted Kushi, who got a signing bonus spread out over two years when he joined the Dolphins as an undrafted rookie free agent last year.

By the time June arrives, defensive tackle Zach Sieler will have the highest cap number on the roster at $11.4 million, lower than five players who are gone — Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Jalen Ramsey and Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Those five players alone will account for $143.8 million of cap space, or 47.7 percent of the total cap space.

Again, crazy.

The 2026 season will be the second since Terron Armstead retired after three years with the Dolphins, but he'll still count more than $10 million against the cap as the result of remaining signing bonus proration.

The Dolphins also will have three players count against their books in 2026 one year after they were signed as free agents last offseason — James Daniels ($4.8 million), Zach Wilson ($3.8 million) and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine ($1.2 million).

The other former players who will count at least $1 million against the cap include Chubb, Jonnu Smith and Matthew Judon.

The rest consists of former draft picks or rookie free agents.

And it includes two players currently on the roster who signed as a rookie free agents last year but were cut with their signing bonus counting as dead cap space: Ethan Robinson and Theo Wease Jr.

The rest of that list includes Jason Sanders, Cam Smith, Mohamed Kamara, Patrick McMorris, John Saunders Jr., B.J. Adams, Addison West, Ethan Robinson, Josh Priebe, Alex Huntley, AJ Henning, Eugene Asante, Nate Noel, Grayson Murphy, Monaray Baldwin and Kushi.