Reports this past week had the Miami Dolphins and Arizona Cardinals both trying to trade their “star” QBs. Star is in quotes because both were drafted highly and given huge contracts, but in the year 2026 they are incredibly toxic assets. Both have name recognition, but no one wants their team associated with those names. Does either team have any hopes of trading them at all? How bad will it be if they can’t trade them? Let’s find out…
Tua
On July 26th, 2024 the Miami Dolphins gave Tua a 4/$212.4m contract. This was coming off his second year under coach Mike McDaniel where he threw for 4600 yards and 29 TDs. This was the going rate for the star QB and teams had to look past the turnover issues, lack of arm strength, and very public battle with concussions. Fast forward 2 years and not only was Tua benched to end the season, but his coach is gone and he seriously sounded like he was battling CTE live in press conferences. Needless to say, things haven’t gone well.
For the 2026 season, Tua is set to have a $56m cap hit. This is the NFL though, so that number is fungible. They could restructure his contract, sending about $32m of that into the future. That takes this year down to $23m, but now next year counts as $62m and Tua would still be on the roster taking up space. They also just seem to really want to get rid of him. What are the options?
They would LOVE to trade him, but there are some huge problems with this. His 2026 compensation of $54m is FULLY GUARANTEED, including $39m in salary and $15m in an option bonus. This might sound redundant but it needs to be stressed, like Shaq in Blue Chips, somebody owes his ass 54 million dollars. In a trade, the Dolphins would have to pay the bonus while the acquiring team would pay the salary. No one wants to pay that. If Miami doesn’t want to just eat that money by cutting him, they would probably have to incentive an acquiring team with draft picks. Yikes.
Potential trade partners also know that they have Miami over a barrel. Why? Because the price to cut him is OUTRAGEOUS. The Dolphins have about $100m in dead cap obligations to Tua. That means a straight cut accelerates that number to the top of their already crowded cap sheet. Cut him after June 1 and its $67m this year with $33m next year. Double Yikes!
Needless to say, Miami is in a big bind. Trading him is their best bet ($45m dead cap right away or $13m and $32m) but getting someone to help with that is going to hurt just as bad as paying it.
Kyler
Murray signed his 5/$230.5m contract on July 21, 2022 after his 3rd season in the league. While that’s a discount over the current going rate (not at the time), it’s still a pretty penny right now. Murray has a $53m cap hit this season but only $41m next season. His $40m total compensation for 2026 is already guaranteed. Despite this, his situation is much less miserable than Tua.
Should the Cardinals simply cut Murray now, not much changes for them. His cap hit for this season would only go up slightly to $55m. A post June 1 cut splits that number to $47.5m this year and around $7.5m next year. Those numbers are not ideal, but they aren’t Tua-level crippling either. The Cardinals are in a gap year this season anyway.
They will try to trade him though. While this would help the Cardinals to the tune of $38m in future cap relief, that money will still need to be paid out by a future team. The teams can do some manipulating here. Murray has a $23m salary and a $17m roster bonus (both guaranteed). Depending on when they make the trade, the Cardinals can decide to eat either all or part of that money through various means.1 This could mean a receiving team gets Murray at a considerable discount, possibly even the league minimum. A team would actually give up assets for that kind of contract.
The Cardinals are simply in a much better position than the Dolphins. While Arizona pretty much knows they are going to have to account for $50m either way, Miami is looking at a bill twice that size.
- The Cardinals could restructure his salary into a bonus then trade him. This would mean they would be on the hook for that money and not his new team. This would seriously sweeten a deal. ↩︎
All cap figures courtesy of Spotrac and OverTheCap
Philly Front Office 
Leave a comment