How a lucrative, long contract for Tagovailoa could help solve a 2024 Dolphins problem
If the Dolphins decide, after the season, that they need to pay Tua Tagovailoa about $50 million annually in a long-term contract, that would be a good thing, because it would suggest that he stayed healthy for all or most of 2023 and continued to perform at this high level.
But wouldn’t that further worsen the Dolphins’ salary cap crunch? Eventually, yes. But in the short term, absolutely not.
Tagovailoa is under contract next season at $23.1 million under the fifth-year option that was exercised by the Dolphins long before the May 1, 2023 deadline. That would be his cap number for 2024 if the Dolphins don’t give him a multiyear contract after this season.
But the Chargers and Bengals gave Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow long-term contracts that replaced those fifth-year 2024 options. In the Bengals’ case, Burrow’s five-year, $275 million deal is structured in a way that his 2024 cap number is about what it would have been playing on a fifth-year option ($29.7 million).
But the Chargers structured Herbert’s five-year, $262.5 million contract in a way where his 2024 cap hit dropped significantly to $19.3 million.
And the Eagles structured Jalen Hurts’ five-year, $255 million contract in a way that his 2024 cap number is low by top NFL starting QB standards ($13.5 million), but then followed by big cap hit jumps in subsequent years to $21.8 million, $31.8 million, $45.8 million and $54.1 million.
How did the Eagles get Hurts’ cap hit as low as $13.5 million in 2024 when his new contract averages $51 million per year? By including a $23 million signing bonus and a $38.9 million option bonus that are both prorated, for cap purposes, over the five years of the deal. Those prorations, combined with giving Hurts a $1.1 million minimum base salary for the 2024 season, accounts for his low 2024 cap number.
I asked Jason Fitzgerald, founder of Overthecap.com, if the Dolphins can do the type of low-cap-hit-in-2024 contract structure with Tagovailoa that the Eagles did with Hurts.
“Yes, they can do the exact same type of structure to keep the numbers low in the front end of the contract,” Fitzgerald said. “...Hurts’ original salary was just $4.3 million and they gave him a $20 million raise for this year [2023]. Tua’s [2024] salary is around $23 million, so if they did a similar raise, you would be looking at a cap hit of about $9.5 million in 2024.
“Burrow got a $40 million raise this year and the same kind of raise for Tua next year would lead to a cap hit of approximately $13.5 million. They would follow that with the option in 2025 and 2026, which is what the Chargers did with Herbert, and possibly more to follow the Hurts and Burrow kind of structures. In any event, if [the Dolphins] extend [Tagovailoa] after the year, my guess would be that cap hit would be somewhere between $9.5 million and $14 million.”
Such an approach with Tagovailoa would be helpful because Miami stands $23.6 million over the 2024 cap. But lowering Tagovailoa’s 2024 cap hit from $23.1 million to, say, $14 million, would put the Dolphins $14.5 million over the cap.
Emmanuel Ogbah’s $17.8 million 2024 cap hit would drop to $4 million if he’s cut before June 1 or $2 million if cut after June 1.
So those two moves alone - giving Tagovailoa a long-term deal with backloaded big cap hits - and cutting Ogbah (whose $14.9 million 2024 salary is non guaranteed) — gets Miami essentially to the 2024 cap number.
The Dolphins would need to make at least a half dozen other moves, including restructures and some cuts, to clear out room to re-sign Christian Wilkins and Raekwon Davis (or their replacements) and Robert Hunt, Austin Jackson and Connor Williams (or their replacements) and sign a draft class.
How else to clear cap space for 2024 is a topic for another day.
There won’t be extension talks on Tagovailoa during the season, general manager Chris Grier indicated in August.
“We just kind of agreed let’s just let him play out the season and then we’ll attack that in the offseason,” Grier said.
Regardless of how any multiyear deal is structured, Tagovailoa can expect an annual average salary in the $47 million to $52 million range if he continues to play at this level — or close to it — all year and stays healthy the entire season.
Burrow leads all NFL quarterbacks in average annual salary at $55 million, followed by Patrick Mahomes at $52.7 million, Herbert at $52.5 million, Lamar Jackson at $51 million, Hurts at $51 million, Russell Wilson at $49 million and Kyler Murray at $46.1 million.
There’s a long way to go this season, and Tagovailoa — who is now represented by Athletes First’s Ryan Williams and Austin Lyman — must stay healthy and remain at this elite level to motivate the Dolphins to tear up his $23.1 million contract for 2023. But if he does, it could help Miami’s cap issues in the short term and be a win for everyone.
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 2:13 PM.
