With seemingly no warning, the Miami Dolphins unceremoniously parted ways with multiple players who defined the most recent era of the franchise. General manager Jon-Eric Sullivan woke up Monday and clearly was ready to kick off the Dolphins' rebuild with a bang, releasing Tyreek Hill, Bradley Chubb, James Daniels, and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine in a flurry of roster moves.
While several of those moves seemed inevitable, particularly the Hill release, all of them happening at the same time could be a signal that the last remaining major roster move is on the horizon.
Tua Tagovailoa seems destined to be elsewhere in 2026; the question is how the Dolphins make that happen. While all reports suggest that they would like to trade him, their moves on Monday may have given them the freedom to simply release the struggling quarterback outright if need be.
According to NFL Network's Tom Pelissero, Miami opened up a massive amount of cap space with its cuts.
Releasing Tyreek Hill, Bradley Chubb, James Daniels and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine clears $66.98 million and over $56 million in 2026 cap space. One or more could be held until March 11 for additional cap savings. Roster reset underway in Miami. https://t.co/O8Lan2FMSy
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) February 16, 2026
Miami Dolphins flurry of cuts open up the space to end Tua Tagovailoa's time in South Beach
The accurate numbers will take time to sort out, but the Dolphins should have created enough space with their roster moves to have options to handle Tagovailoa's exit. Trading him, especially after June 1st, is still their best option from a cap perspective, but that seems less and less likely by the day.
Making him a post-June 1st release seems like their most realistic option at this point, and it would be doable following their other moves.
Doing so would leave Miami with very little wiggle room to add talent in free agency, barring multiple other moves like restructures and extensions. But Sullivan has made it clear that he will follow a similar line of thinking that he learned from his time with the Packers, choosing to focus on the NFL draft to infuse Miami with cheap, young talent.
Any hopes of adding a Malik Willis or a different veteran QB would likely become a pipedream in this scenario, but the new front office looks determined to start over without the dead weight left behind by the previous regime. It may hurt the Dolphins in the short term, but as fans just saw with the AFC East rival New England Patriots, sometimes you have to bottom out before you can climb to the top.
We have seen the ceiling of what the team can accomplish with Tua at his best, and it wasn't good enough. Cutting ties now and moving forward is the best thing for both sides.