Despite all the signings the Phins still have plenty of cash!
The Phins entered the offseason with the most cap space to spend in the 2022 Free Agency. Saying the Miami Dolphins have been a big player in the offseason market is a HUGE understatement. Amazingly, after all the moves and money spent, they still have $21.8 million in cap space available, which is still the third most in the league!
It’s shocking how well Miami was able to structure all these contracts and spend all this money… and still have this much cap space left.
Grier is the Houdini of the Salary Cap
As much as we’ve complained about Chris Grier, he and his staff really did make things happen. Phins were able to spend over $200 million on Armstead and Hill, give Howard a record setting contract, and still have plenty of money to play with.
Grier was creative by getting Byron Jones to restructure his salary and take a big portion in a bonus. He also traded Parker and got him off the books with a minimal amount of dead money. It was a masterful job in manipulating the cap. Speaking of dead money, Miami used to be one of the worst teams in the league with carrying huge amounts of dead money each season against the cap because of bad deals on overpaid and underperforming players. However, the 2022 season the Dolphins are only carrying around $8.5 million in dead cap money which is one of the lowest in the league. There are only 7 teams with a lower amount of dead cap money being carried over. This is a far cry from when they led the league in dead cap money in 2019 with nearly $61 million and 4th worst in the league in 2021 with $39 million in dead cap money.
You can bet with the best pay per head that this is a key reason why Miami has so much available cap space coming into this 2022 offseason.
Will the Phins use some of the cap space on more quality players?
Yes, Miami will need to use some of their current available cap space on their draft class. But this will be a minimal payout since Miami only has 4 picks and all are cheapish 3rd Round and later.
While many fans might want Miami to use this money to add another center or linebacker, they’ll likely want to see if any key injuries hit the team in training camp and preseason. That extra money might be needed to go shopping for replacements. Also, they could just rollover the money for extra available cap space in the 2023 season. Currently, the Dolphins are $4.3 million over the cap for 2023 which is 7th worst in the league with only 36 players signed. However, the cap will rise next year and add more space. So, if Miami rolls some over, they can quickly have some room to make a few key moves next offseason.
Even though there is plenty of work to be done next year to balance the cap, this was a great job by the organization to utilize the cap space they had this offseason.
What are the rest of the Miami Dolphins News fans thoughts on how the Dolphins managed to do this so effectively?