The Miami Dolphins are officially paying $99 million for a quarterback who will play for someone else. General manager Jon-Eric Sullivan announced Monday that the team will release Tua Tagovailoa after the start of the new league year, ending a six-season tenure that began with a “Tank for Tua” rebuild and concludes with an even more expensive one.
Sullivan’s statement expressed “great respect for the person and player” while emphasizing the franchise’s desire to build toward a “sustained winner.” The Dolphins are taking the largest single-player dead cap hit in NFL history to get a fresh start at the position that torpedoed their last two seasons.
Why the Dolphins Had No Choice But to Absorb the Cap Damage
Miami tried everything to avoid this outcome. Sullivan acknowledged at the combine that “everything is on the table, including the potential of a trade,” but Tagovailoa’s $54 million fully guaranteed salary for 2026 scared off potential suitors.
The previous regime’s sins are now Sullivan’s inheritance. Chris Grier handed Tagovailoa a four-year, $212.4 million extension in 2024 following a career year. The concerns were there before the ink dried. What followed made them look prophetic: 15 interceptions in 14 starts in 2025, leading the NFL. His -0.01 EPA per dropback ranked in the bottom third of qualified quarterbacks. McDaniel benched him for seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers with three games remaining.
By designating Tagovailoa as a post-June 1 release, the Dolphins spread the $99.2 million dead cap charge across two seasons. They have two options: $67.4 million in 2026 and $31.8 million in 2027, or $55.4 million this year and $43.8 million next year, according to OverTheCap.
That eclipses the previous record Denver set by releasing Russell Wilson.
Dolphins’ announcement on Tua Tagovailoa: pic.twitter.com/601CMN3T7g
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 9, 2026
Tagovailoa’s 2025 collapse shows clearly in his PFSN QB Impact trajectory. After ranking fifth, eighth, and eighth among NFL quarterbacks from 2022-2024 with scores above 80, he cratered to 27th this season with a 72.2 QBi — his worst mark since his rookie year and a grade that dropped from B to C-. The performance trend chart tells the story visually: three years of top-10 production followed by a freefall back to where he started. For a quarterback earning $53 million annually, ranking behind 26 other signal-callers made the Dolphins’ decision inevitable.
Green Bay Blueprint Meets South Beach Reality
Sullivan and Hafley arrived from Green Bay with a model that worked there: draft well, develop young players, let veterans walk when the price exceeds production. The Packers moved on from Aaron Rodgers and didn’t skip a beat because Jordan Love was ready.
Miami’s situation offers no such luxury. The best option at quarterback is Ewers, who completed 65.8% of his passes at Texas but fell to pick 231. He started the final three games of 2025, showing enough promise to remain in the mix but hardly establishing himself as a long-term answer.
Sullivan confirmed the Dolphins will draft a quarterback in April and “likely every year moving forward.” The Green Bay connection extends to free agent Malik Willis, who spent the past two seasons in the Packers’ system. “I think I’d be lying to you if I said we’re not talking about Malik Willis,” Sullivan said at the combine.
Willis makes sense as a bridge option. But he’s not the answer. Nobody is currently available.
The Dolphins released Tyreek Hill, Bradley Chubb, and James Daniels last month, clearing significant cap space. Those moves signaled the obvious: this isn’t a retool. It’s a tear-down.
For Tagovailoa, the market will be thin. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported the Falcons could be a landing spot while Michael Penix Jr. recovers from ACL surgery. The Vikings and Jets have also expressed interest in what would likely be the veteran minimum.
The irony is difficult to ignore. The Dolphins tanked for Tagovailoa in 2019, bottoming out to secure the fifth pick. Six years later, they’re absorbing nearly $100 million in dead money to try again, this time without a premium draft pick. Sullivan has six selections in the top 111 this April, but nothing higher than 11th overall.
Building a “sustained winner” will require patience that Miami hasn’t shown in decades. The Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game since 2000. Tagovailoa was supposed to end that drought. Instead, his departure marks the beginning of another long climb, financed by the most expensive mistake in franchise history.
