The Miami Dolphins have a lot of dead cap space because of mistakes
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins have a ridiculous amount of dead cap space this year because they couldn’t evaluate the veteran talent and handed out bad contracts.
Next year the Dolphins should have more money than just about any other NFL team when free agency and the start of the NFL new league year rolls around but you have to wonder if Chris Grier knows how to spend that money. If last years free agent class is any indication, he is good at spending money on the wrong people.
You don’t have to look far to see the problems with Miami’s spending habits which seems to only rival my wife’s Amazon spending.
NFL teams always have dead money sitting on their books. Next year will be the same thing for the Dolphins. In many cases, it isn’t a bad thing. You eat a bad salary for one season and move on. It becomes a problem when you have a lot of dead money on those players that weren’t producing are producing somewhere else.
One name stands out simply to make me laugh. The Dolphins are carrying $158 thousand in dead cap space for Isaiah Ford. It is such a minimum amount you wouldn’t normally care, and I personally don’t care but the fact that it is there is because the Dolphins have continually signed Ford and released him, and signed and released and signed him again.
At the top is Ereck Flowers. A big time free agent hit that was a miss by Grier in 2020. Miami overpaid Flowers to the point that they would sign him to a 3 year deal with $19 million guaranteed and up $30 million but Grier and Flores saw enough in 2020 to eat $8 million of his contract to save another $8 million.
Flowers was traded before the 2021 draft to Washington for a swap of 7th round draft picks.
Flowers is only one example of bad spending. Miami’s big $50 plus million deal for LB Kyle Van Noy ended with a quick release this past off-season. His release surprised everyone including Van Noy. Van Noy is back with the Patriots and playing well, of course. The Dolphins? They are eating $4.1 million in dead space.
Miami has three other players who are costing the team over $1 million. Jakeem Grant, Bobby McCain, and Shaq Lawson. We understand the moving on from McCain and Grant but the Lawson deal was a mistake from the start and the Dolphins shouldn’t have made the trade. Surprisingly, the restructure of Bernardrick McKinney’s contract and subsequent release only is costing the Dolphins $750K.
A couple of other names that stand out? Reshad Jones is still on the books at $230K. He hasn’t played for the Dolphins or in the NFL since 2019.
Matt Skura is on the books for $400k. Skura was a free agent signing this past off-season and couldn’t make the roster. He was expected to be the starting center. WR Robert Foster was signed as a free agent as well this past off-season. He is counting $153K in dead money having not made the team.
Miami recently claimed Sheldrick Redwine off waivers and now are eating $141K in cap space after his release. He was with Miami for about two weeks.
As I said, teams carry dead money all the time but when you sign veteran free agents and guarantee portions of their contract before getting them on the field, it burns a lot more when they don’t make the roster. It’s even worse when you sign a player to a big contract and let them go a year later.