Miami Dolphins in good shape as brutal day could fall in NFL

The NFL start to free agency is today and the Miami Dolphins are in good shape to take advantage of what could be a brutal day.

Five NFL teams, the Bears, Packers, Eagles, Saints, and Rams are still over the $182 million cap limit and will need to make moves, this according to Spotrac.com.  The most belongs to the Rams who are at $9.7 million and the least are the Bears who are $964K over the cap. The other three are between $3 and $6 million over.

That may not be a lot but consider that eight other teams have less than $9.7 million in working capital. As we have all seen already, the salary cap can be manipulated to fit the needs of a team. The Buccaneers were in a horrible cap situation but managed to restructure several contracts and still get under the cap.

The problem is these teams will need to sign draft picks and they will need to supplement their rosters. Take into consideration that all teams who have made trades like the Dolphins, Rams, Lions, Colts, Eagles, and Texans, will immediately take on those contracts as soon as the league new year begins today. Right now, they are not on the books.

We should see surprise releases and maybe a few trades in the next couple of days, if not today. For the Dolphins, now is the time to watch for players being released or contracts being restructured. Miami can create quite a bit of space with simple restructures or releases.

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As the wide receiver market remains stagnant, the asking prices will start to come down and that too will help the Dolphins as they look to add free agent pass catchers. The market also bodes well should they want to renegotiate some of the contracts they have currently for Jakeem Grant, Albert Wilson, DeVante Parker, or Allen Hurns.

Miami could ask them to take a paycut and if they refuse, this is not a market they would want fall into given the low cap and current situation. It is all fluid but there should be moving today in some form across the NFL. We have seen a lot of top talent move already but it would be surprising if today doesn’t see the market fill with more players.