How Dolphins re-signing QB Tua will be at great cost — including weakening team elsewhere | Opinion
The NFL is a hard business at its cold heart, with the games on the field the window dressing. By this reality — as we are beginning to see this offseason — the Miami Dolphins’ championship window (if there was one) may have been open the widest last season.
And it will be difficult for the Dolphins to get that back, for reasons entirely about what drives everything: Money.
That is what made the way last season ended so disappointing for Miami, with a prolific offense ebbing and critical injuries on defense and a first-round playoff loss in arctic Kansas City.
The Fins enjoyed the luxury of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa still being on his four-year, $30. 3 million rookie contract -- a ton of money for most of us, but loose change under the cushions for an NFL team and a young QB having a Pro Bowl season. The club took full advantage by trading for (and paying for) extraordinarily talented and accomplished players in key positions such as receiver Tyreek Hill and cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
Miami became a contender pretty quickly because they could afford to spend big because they had a good quarterback on the cheap at the most expensive position by far.
The San Francisco 49ers were able to do the same, trading for Christian McCaffrey, the best all-around running back in football, because in Brock Purdy they had a quality starting quarterback making peanuts.
But eventually the bills come due, and that’s why Miami enters an exceptionally challenging offseason with NFL free agency and the trade period both beginning March 13.
The Dolphins need to get better. Better than Buffalo in their own AFC East, better than Kansas City, better than everybody if they are to raise a Super Bowl trophy for the first time since near-prehistoric 1973.
Can they be better than last year, though, or even as good, with the financial constraints on them like shackles?
The ripple effects of negotiating to lavish Tagovailoa with his first megamoney contract already are being felt.
Miami finds itself in such bad shape with the salary cap it had little choice but to outright release its longest-serving player and recent Pro Bowl cornerback in Xavien Howard, along with defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah.
And still the Dolphins right now, today, still are $15.675 million over the salary cap. Miami is one of only eight teams over the cap, and only three others are over by more.
And that’s before making Tagovailoa rich.
They don’t have to do that now. He is under contract with a fifth-year option in 2024. But if they risk waiting until after the coming season he would be a free agent and the price to sign him would be even higher assuming another strong season. Realistically, then, now is the time.
Miami will try to get Tagovailoa on a bargain deal in the $40 million per year range, but the market will demand more. For an example look to the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert, who arrived in the same draft, was taken one spit lower and also has made one Pro Bowl. He signed a five-year, $262.5 million extension.
The reality of the cap hit to a team signing a QB to that kind of deal — a team already over the cap limit — is onerous.
Cutting Howard and Ogbah was just a hint of it.
Another result likely will be the inability to re-sign key free agents who could go elsewhere starting next week.
Foremost in that category is defensive tackle Christian Wilkins. He is really good, in his prime, one of the best run stoppers of any interior linemen and also had nine sacks last season. They need him badly and could have kept him via the franchise tag ... but knew they could not afford to.
Free agent guard Robert Hunt is another guy the Fins would love to re-sign. Same with center Connor Williams and edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel, who blossomed big last season after Jaelen Phillips got hurt.
But a team already over the salary cap and trying to extend its starting quarterback sometimes has to let good players walk.
That is why I say last season might have been the optimum window, the best possible roster.
This also magnifies the importance of the decision to give the franchise keys to Tua Tagovailoa.
I think the Dolphins are right to invest big in a quarterback coming off his best season who just turned 26 and proved at last he could stay healthy.
Tua is not the perfect QB, no. I wish his mobility was better and he could run for a first down when needed without fans being terrified. He had career highs in interceptions and fumbles last season. But he just led the NFL in passing yards and his accuracy is high-end. The Dolphins rightly see him as a top-10 QB if not quite top-tier.
But they better be right.
Because being wrong at that position can devastate, as we are seeing in the league now with the Denver Broncos and New York Giants.
The Giants gave Daniel Jones a four-year, $160 million deal (with $92M guaranteed) and now reportedly have buyer’s remorse and will move on from Jones.
The Broncos will be on the hook for $85 million still owed to Russell Wilson by releasing him mid-contract.
The Dolphins need to be right on Tagovailoa as the long-term answer, and Tagovailoa in turn needs to be good enough to be a difference maker and lift a team — one whose surrounding roster may not be as good as it might have been had they not signed the QB to a massive extension.
The investment and risk are huge.
So better be the reward.
