Kelly: Details show Dolphins made Tua Tagovailoa one of NFL’s five highest paid QBs
There is no looking back, or second guessing, and no room to insert doubt at this point.
The Miami Dolphins are officially Tua Tagovailoa’s team, at least for the next three seasons.
Owner Steve Ross and General Manager Chris Grier handed him the keys on Friday, immediately after his first unlimited practice of the training camp, when Miami signed its Pro Bowl quarterback to a four-year extension that will reportedly pay him $212 million in new money, and guaranteed him $167 million.
However, the devils of the deal are in the details, and a ProFootballTalk post broke down every season of Tagovaila’s deal, which is clearly very player friendly, but protects the team against injuries, which has plagued the former Alabama standout since his college days.
Tagovailoa’s complete contract a five-year deal that could carry him to the 2028 season, and is worth $235.2 million, therefore it averages out to $47.1 million a season. That makes him the third highest paid quarterback in the NFL when it comes to averages for the entire deal.
Baltimore Ravens starter Lamar Jackson’s deal averages $52 million, and makes him the NFL quarterback with the highest average per season throughout the entire length of his deal, which is five-year, $260 million deal.
The extension Jared Goff got this offseason from the Detroit Lions puts him second at $49.1 million, and then there’s Tagovailoa.
Jordan Love’s new five-year, $230.5 million deal, which came from the Green Bay Packers hours after Tagovailoa finalized his deal, averages $46.1 million a season.
Three quarterbacks - Deshaun Watson ($45.8 million), Joe Burrow ($45.1 million) and Kirk Cousins ($45 million) - average more than $45 million or more a season.
And unlike Jordan Love’s new four-year, $220 million deal, which came from the Green Bay Packers hours later, Tagovailoa.
What Love’s deal provides him a record-setting $75 million signing bonus, which trumps the $73 million Goff got from the Lions this summer.
Tagovailoa only received a $42 million signing bonus, which fell short of the $50 million signing bonus the Dolphins gave All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hill in 2022.
The signing bonus is important because it allows teams to keep the cap number low in the early seasons. The new deal lowers Tagovailoa’s cap hit by $13.5 million this season, but his year two hit seems to be just under $40 million, which is steep.
However, the team can turn most of his $25 million base salary into a bonus, pushing the cap charge down significantly by writing him a $20 million-plus check.
Love’s deal features $155 million in fully guaranteed money, which is an important distinction because it means Love, who has started 20 NFL games, will receive every cent of that payout.
NFL contracts have three designations when it comes to guaranteed money, which is the most important factor in all of that sport’s contracts. There’s fully guaranteed money, which is money due at signing. Money that’s guaranteed for injury. That’s money protecting the player if he suffers a catastrophic injury, but it’s not guaranteed if healthy. And then there’s guaranteed money that are triggered on a specific day. For example, a player on the roster on the fifth day of the 2027 season could get $10 million of his 2028 base salary guaranteed.
Tagovailoa received $93.2 million in fully guaranteed money, but there are numerous triggers that will push his guaranteed money to $150 million by the 2026 season. And there’s potentially for more to be guaranteed. For instance, $20 million of his $31 million base salary that season is guaranteed for injury.
He also has four years of roster bonuses that will pay him an extra $44,117 for each game he plays in the regular season.
But Tagovailoa’s new deal is basically a three-year commitment for $150 million, with only $3 million in guarantees that would linger into 2027, if the Dolphins decide to move on for whatever reason.
After that season he’s due a $31 million base salary in 2027, and $5 million in a roster bonus that’s due in March. In 2028, the final year of his new deal, he’s slotted to make $41.4 million, and has a $7 million roster bonus due in March.
The deal also features $9 million in incentives that could balloon the value of the contract to $250 million, and those triggers are dependent on him playing half of the quarterback snaps for each season, and pays him a set amount of money for how far he takes the team in the postseason. Playing 50 percent of a wildcard game would pay Tagovailoa $250,000. He’ll be paid $500,000 for playing 50 percent of the division round pays him another $500,000. The payout for a conference championship game is $500,000, and he’ll earn $1 million for playing in 50 percent of the snaps in the Super Bowl for any year of the contract.
The details reveal that the contract will be manageable for the first three seasons, before Miami restructures it - moving money around to create cap space - which is common when it comes to quarterback deals.
The cap space this new deal creates can be used now to sign more veterans (Jevon Holland, David Long, Liam Eichenberg, etc.) to extensions, used to acquire more free agents or execute a trade, or carried over to next offseason, when Miami must again rebuild the roster since 30 players projected to make it onto the 53-man roster after training camp are impending free agents next offseason.
That’s more than half the 2024 roster, which means the Dolphins could again be facing a challenging offseason when it comes to managing the team’s finances.
But that’s what happens when a team starts carrying a top end quarterback salary, a contract that eats up 20 percent of the salary cap, which is a new reality for the Dolphins franchise.
This story was originally published July 27, 2024 at 3:12 PM.
