Exploring the Dolphins’ More Creative Options for Trading Tua Tagovailoa

There have been a lot of ideas floated about how the Miami Dolphins can offload Tua Tagovailoa and his massive contract this offseason.

National reporting indicates the Dolphins are still trying to trade Tagovailoa, but that seems unlikely for several reasons. Any team would have to take on his contract and $54 million cap hit.

If you believe in anonymous quotes from executives, Jason La Canfora recently reported that several high-level executives believe it’s impossible for the Dolphins to trade Tua.

“I don’t think they can pawn him off on anyone,” a GM said, according to La Canfora.

However, some have raised more creative ways for the Dolphins to facilitate a trade. The Dolphins could include a draft pick with Tua, basically doing an NBA-style salary dump or paying down some of his salary.

We’re going to look at those options and their positives and negatives.

Trading a Pick With Tua

In a salary dump scenario, the Dolphins would have to do something close to what the Houston Texans did when they traded Brock Osweiler, a second-round and sixth-round pick to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for a fourth-round selection.

The Dolphins might not have to include more than one pick, depending on how much the acquiring team likes Tua as a potential starting option, but it’ll likely require a Day 2 selection.

The benefit of this is obvious. The Dolphins would free up $11 million against the cap — or $54 million less than if they were to release him without a post-June 1 designation — and get out from Tua’s contract cleanly. There would be no splitting it across two seasons or a messy restructure to cut him before June 1.

It would all be another team’s problem.

That’s all true, but frankly, this idea also has major flaws. For starters, what good is $11 million going to do the Dolphins this offseason? This year’s free agency class is not good, and new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan has said he doesn’t want a team of “mercenaries.”

Sure, he also mentioned the team would make exceptions in rare cases for young players who fit their mold. The thing with Miami’s cap is that it’s totally fixed next season.

The Dolphins have dropped to 27th in cash spending for 2027, and cutting Tua would drop them to 31st. Yes, they’d have some dead cap space, but Miami is slated to have $92 million in effective cap space next season, according to Over The Cap.

The team will have more than enough after cutting Tua, and with another cap increase at the end of the season.

The other issue with this strategy is that this is the type of thinking that got Miami into trouble in the first place.

Since 2022, the Dolphins have made the fewest number of non-quarterback draft picks (20) in the entire NFL. The Packers are first with 37. If you narrow that down to the top-50, Miami is last with three, and the Packers are first with 11.

Miami’s roster is so bad because they haven’t picked any players in the draft. This roster needs young, controllable talent at pretty much every position.

Getting a young starter on a super affordable four-year deal at pick 75 is way more valuable to this Dolphins team than saving $11 million against the cap during a season in which you’re not expecting to compete.

The only way for the Dolphins to break their cycle of mediocrity is to embrace a long-term view of team building. Trading a Day 2 pick just to remove Tua’s contract would be incredibly short-sighted.

Now, of course, there is a point where this would be a smart move. If a team only wanted a fifth-round or later pick, then it would make more sense. But given all the information, that seems like a pipe dream.

Paying Down Tua’s Salary

Another way to entice a team to trade for Tua is to pay down some of his salary, thereby lightening the burden on the acquiring team’s cap.

The basic premise here is that Miami would absorb a good bit of Tua’s contract, adding to their 2026 cap problems, but making it better than cutting him outright.

ESPN already reported that the Dolphins are willing to do this, so we know it is at least a possibility. The mechanics of how paying down salary works can be a bit complicated, though.

Even if Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is willing to pay a large chunk of Tua’s salary for a post June 1 trade, the Dolphins would still be left with a substantial dead cap hit. The exact number would depend on how much Ross is willing to pay, but Miami would still be on the hook for a decent sum.

A pre-June 1 trade has the same problem. It would still incur a sizable dead cap hit, so the question becomes: how much money is worth buying down to make Tua a good enough asset to not trade a pick with him?

That’s a hard question to answer, but it’s worth pointing out that Texans owner Janice McNair paid $16 million of Osweiler’s salary in the trade we mentioned earlier and still sent a second-round pick to Cleveland.

Ross might have to pay more than that because Tua’s contract is more expensive overall, and the more he pays, the more complicated it will make Miami’s cap situation.

If the Dolphins can find a balance between saving money on Tua’s dead cap hit by paying down his salary and enticing a team to give them anything of value in a trade, then this makes sense.

Even if it’s just a late-round pick, that is a more preferable outcome to trading a valuable pick just to get out of a contract that won’t hold them back next season anyway.

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