Miami Dolphins salary cap future as 2022 season set to start

Miami’s salary cap situation, and remember it is a fictitious number in reality, sits around $11 million and change according to Overthecap.com. That does not include the annual NFL increase and next year’s cap is expected to jump considerably.

Miami’s top five players next season in terms of compensation and cap hit are as follows:

• Emmanuel Ogbah – $17.350 million
• Jerome Baker – $11.9 million
• Xavien Howard – $10 million
• Tua Tagovailoa – $9.6 million
• Tyreek Hill – $31.2 million

Of those five players, Jerome Baker will carry $6.25 million in dead space if released but would save Miami $5.6 million. He is the only one with an acceptable value but Miami has no reason to move on from him.

If Miami were to try and get cap relief or cash relief, they could extend Tua Tagovailoa depending on what happens this year.

The biggest cap relief would come from these players if the Dolphins opted to move on and create cap/spending space.

• Chase Edmonds – $600K dead money vs. $6 million in savings.
• Connor Williams – $3.3M dead money vs. $5 mill savings
• Keion Crossen – 0 dead money, $3.17 mill savings
• Durham Smythe – $750K dead money vs. $3.5 mill savings

Those are the top four players that could bring relief if needed without diving into restructured deals and extensions. More than likely, the Dolphins will not move on from any of those players if they don’t absolutely have to.

While Miami is up against the cap a little bit, they are built for 2023 keeping the core of the team together on both sides of the ball.