As the brand new league 12 months is fast approaching, the Dolphins have been working desperately to determine a way out of the corner they’ve painted themselves into. Because it’s been reported recently that Miami is nearing a choice on the longer term of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, it appears one option could also be getting taken away from the team.
In keeping with SportsBoom’s Jason La Canfora, there may be “no trade market” for Tagovailoa. All conversation from each the Dolphins and Tagovailoa regarding the future has revolved around the concept of a trade. At season’s end, Tagovailoa made it known that he would welcome a fresh start elsewhere, while the team made it known their hope was to trade him.
Our most up-to-date update before this indicated that the Dolphins were still focused on the trade route for Tagovailoa’s exit, and so they expressed a willingness to eat a few of money owed to the quarterback in an effort to make it occur.
Just before the 2024 NFL season, Miami made the move to sign Tagovailoa to an extension following a season wherein he led the NFL in passing yards while starting every game of the season for the primary (and only) time in his profession. Within the wake of several other record-breaking contracts on the position, the Dolphins agreed to a four-year, $212.4MM take care of over $167.17MM in guaranteed money. Since then, Tagovailoa has missed a combined nine games in two seasons and, after averaging over 260 yards per game in three straight seasons, saw his average yards per game plummet to 190 this 12 months.
We knew that Tagovailoa’s benching this 12 months, combined together with his huge contract and injury history, made a trade difficult, forcing the Dolphins to supply up the potential for throwing in some offsetting money. Per La Canfora, though, Tagovailoa isn’t a difficult trade piece; he’s a non-starter. Backed by input from several top NFL executives, La Canfora seems to point that teams within the league are already so turned off by Tagovailoa’s poor play and frequent concussions that they’re not even willing to take him on at a reduced rate.
La Canfora included a series of quotes from said executives, with several not limiting themselves to the language of polite society. One general manager simply told La Canfora, “They’re (screwed).” He went on to call the contract untradeable, saying that, even with Miami “willing to eat a (boat)load of” Tagovailoa’s contract, they “just don’t see a marketplace for him.”
One other top exec relayed to La Canfora a “four-pronged” list of reasons Tagovailoa and the Dolphins were stuck with one another. It began with Tagovailoa’s inability to effectively push the ball down the sphere and make plays consistently anymore. It then moved to perceived leadership issues with concerns that he couldn’t move a locker room and comes off as ingenuine. The third prong called his concussion history alone “a no-go for plenty of teams,” and the fourth ended by calling his deal a “terrible…contract that no person wants to the touch.”
If Miami is unable to trade Tagovailoa, they’ll then be forced with the brand new decision of whether to chop him or keep him. In keeping him, the Dolphins can be retaining perhaps the most costly backup quarterback within the NFL. As they try and obtain a brand new, young option on the position this offseason with which to maneuver forward, Tagovailoa’s continued presence could also create uncertainty and doubt within the locker room. Cutting the 27-year-old, though, would shoulder the Dolphins with $99.2MM in dead money without providing any cap savings. Cutting him now would lock that cash in for the 2026 season alone, whereas the best-case scenario would see the team designate him as a post-June 1 cut, allowing them to separate that $99.2MM over two seasons — still a dire result.
Essentially, though the Dolphins appear to imagine they’re making a choice between three options, the remainder of the league appears to have limited them to 2. Miami might want to determine how best to work around the huge contract obligations that remain tied to Tagovailoa as they try and move on to a brand new era of quarterback.