Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion during last night’s loss to the Buffalo Bills. I believe this is his third diagnosed concussion in the NFL and one of his concussions resulted in a very scary scene a few years ago which led to many believing he should step away from the NFL. The calls have grown louder since last night’s game as the number of concussions combined with other various injuries dating back to college have many wondering if the NFL is the right fit for him at this point.

Miami, somewhat surprisingly, signed Tua to a lucrative four year, $212.4 million contract making him one of the highest paid QB’s in the NFL. Tua, at the time, had one year remaining on his rookie contract which was worth $23.17 million. The new contract would guarantee an additional $144 million for injury of which $70 million was fully guaranteed. These were very player friendly terms given the injury history of the player.

There are three scenarios that would need to be discussed regarding the contract:

1. Tua voluntarily retires
2. Tua’s injury prevents him from playing
3. Miami just makes the call to move on

Tua Retires

There are massive financial ramifications for Tua if he decided to walk away from the Dolphins and retire from the NFL. A player would void any and all future guarantees by simply stepping away from the NFL even if leaving the league would be the best solution for his long term health.

At this point in time, Tua has earned $43.125 million of his contract but that is not necessarily all of his to keep. Of that amount the only number that is guaranteed to him is $9.525 million. That number is made up of his $1.125 million salary from this year and 1/5 of his $42 million signing bonus that he earned when he signed his new contract extension. This number is actually far less than the $23.17 million he would have made on his rookie contract.

When a player walks away from a contract the team can, at their discretion, enforce the forfeiture of bonus money provisions in a contract. Per NFL rules a player who voluntarily retires is responsible to pay the team back the remaining prorated portions of his contract. Tua’s proration is $8.4 million per year and he would have to pay that back each year for the next four years if he decided to call it a career.

That said I can’t see a scenario where Miami would make such a move. As mentioned above he would not have even earned what his prior deal would have paid him if Miami forced the forfeiture of salary. There is probably a lesson there for aspiring agents to just make certain the mechanism’s used for salary cap accounting at the very least protect the “old money” in a contract from any and all possibilities, but I would anticipate Miami allowing him to keep the bonus or at least the amount to cover his $23.17M rookie contract salary.

If this is the end result for Miami and Tua then Miami would have to determine how to deal with the salary cap consequences. These would be the two options for Miami in regards to the salary cap side of things:

If a post June 1 option was used Miami would rework Tua’s contract remove the option bonus and stated salaries and replace them with a minimum salary. My assumption would be that Miami’s decision would be based on how good or bad the 2024 season turned out. If the season went poorly they would probably take the salary cap hit in 2025. If they were competitive they might opt to have more cap room in 2025 and defer the charges to 2026.

Tua is Not Medically Cleared

I think there is always some confusion when it comes to dealing with NFL injuries and exactly what injury protection is or is not. Injury protection really is more of a short term protection that helps protect vesting dates in a contract. In the long term it is more like a catastrophic injury policy as you need to be injured to the point where you can not recover. Those instances are very rare. Injury protection protects you from being released while you are injured. The minute you are healthy the injury protection no longer has meaning.

While we are always learning more about head trauma, I am not sure if anyone has ever been told they can’t play due to concussions. They may have been told they should not play if they value their long term health, but that is different that not being medically cleared to return to play. Most, if not all, of the retirements due to fears surrounding CTE were voluntary with the player’s saying it was not worth the risk to come back to the NFL after suffering some injury.

The NFL has a number of rules regarding return to participation when it comes to concussions but essentially as symptoms subside and the player can return to activities he will eventually be cleared to play and the injury protection no longer kicks in. While there may be, and probably is, far more long term damage at risk, the protocols themselves have more to do with being symptom free than anything else. In any event the salaries that are protected in 2025, 2026, and 2027 would require Tua to still not be cleared for participation in each of those years. So while I think it is a very unlikely outcome let’s look at how this would likely play out.

It would not make sense for Miami to release Tua in 2025 even if Tua is no longer able to pass a physical. The salary cap cost would be gigantic due to the injury guarantees kicking in. Here would be the cost depending on how the move was designated (the June 1 Option would mean the team exercised his option prior to moving him off the team):

None of these scenarios make any sense for Miami because the cost is so high. In this case Miami would carry Tua for the year on the PUP list, hope that his symptoms subside to avoid his $20 million guarantee in 2027, and deal with his cap charge at either  $39.44M if they exercise the option or $58.7 million if they decline the option.

By the time 2026 rolls around Tua’s 2026 salary would still be fully guaranteed so there would be no need to release him this year either and they should again follow the same protocol as the prior year by keeping him on the PUP list. His cap charge this year would depend strictly on what they did with his 2025 option and what they did with his 2026 option. Here are the salary cap options:

I don’t think it would make any sense for Miami to decline either option and should just let the contract play out as normal.

The first real option for release of Tua would be in 2027 when they would still have about $64M on the cap to account for. At this point “only” $20 million would remain guaranteed. He is due a $5 million roster bonus on the 3^rd day of the league year that is addition to the $20 million guarantee so they would need to move him off the active list or modify his contract prior to that date. Assuming both options are exercised (which should be likely) here are the cap costs associated with his release:

The other option would be to again keep Tua on PUP for the year to move the main cap damage to 2028 and 2029. Here what the team would do is modify his contract to bring his salary for the year down to the minimum which would be $1.26 million and pay him an $18.74 million bonus to cover his guarantee. Under this scenario you would get the following cap options (assuming max void year additions for prorated salary):

I kind of feel that if things went this far that this would make the most sense for Miami. If they really wanted to they could do these types of restructures multiple times to just keep kicking the can into 2029, but if they follow the basic framework of his contract this should make the most sense. Ultimately Miami would account for these $157M in cap charges as follows:

I think this would be feasible as most of these cap charges would be workable as yearly “dead money” with the exception of 2026 and some of those costs should be offset by insurance credits that year.

Teams commonly take out insurance policies on players with large contracts and while Miami’s policy is not as aggressive as some others around the NFL they do have, per a source with knowledge of the contract, $49.3 million of the contract insured. While I do not know the particulars of the payouts, basically when a player misses time for injury they will receive proceeds from the policy. Those proceeds will be credited against the cap the following year.

As an example, if the policy paid the Dolphins  $5.5 million this season for games missed they would have an adjustment either to Tua’s cap number or to their adjusted cap next year to reflect that. So in 2026 they may have offsets for some 2025 salary and a big chunk of the signing bonus.

While none of these situations are ideal for Miami it is workable and the team has to effectively plan for millions in dead money a year to be on the roster.

Miami Decides to Move On

I also see this as very unlikely but perhaps Miami just says it is in the best interest of them to make the decision for Tua and say they can’t in good conscience put him back on the field and risk his health, while at the same time protecting all those future guarantees. A move would need to be made prior to the 3^rd day of the league year in 2025 to prevent his 2026 salary from becoming guaranteed and they would need to decide if they wanted to exercise the option or not.

I would not expect Miami to do a standard cut due to the cap costs but both other options are viable. The decision would probably boil down to what they think Tua would earn from another team if he wanted to continue his career. $50.046 million of Tua’s salary would be subject to offsets if he signed with another team provided the Dolphins decline the option. That number drops to $25.046 million if they do exercise the option. While there are plenty of ways to structure a contract to avoid offsetting salary from a prior team, I think you throw out any norms if we are talking a QB with some ability. Miami’s best option would probably be to pay out the option and try to goad a team into paying him more than $25M for the 2025 league year.

Overall Thoughts

With the injury so fresh in everyone’s head I think most of us are expecting the worst but I think everyone involved will play this out slowly and see how Tua feels in the next few weeks. I think it would be a longshot that he was not medically cleared and the Dolphins moving on would probably be a pure ownership decision.

This contract that Miami signed was always risky. There has been a lengthy injury history and Tua has really only stood out as a QB in one season. There was little need to rush into a contract this year and if any of the extreme cases happen and he ends up off of the team next year Miami’s front office will likely be in for some major shakeups as the team deals with the fallout from the contract over the next few years.

With another set of allegations coming down against Deshaun Watson of the Browns I have received a number of questions about what this means for his contract with the team that I will try to answer here as best I can.

At the moment, Watson’s salaries are fully guaranteed in 2025 and 2026. Both of those salaries are worth $46 million. Watson’s 2024 salary was almost all converted to a signing bonus ($44.79M of the $46M salary) before the season began and prorated over the course of the contract.   This salary could be subject to forfeiture depending on when a suspension came down from the league.

NFL contracts have pretty standard default language on guaranteed salary. Get suspended by the NFL for a drug violation and the guarantee is void. Get suspended by the NFL for off field conduct and the guarantee is void. Be unavailable because you are holding out, went to jail, got hurt playing pickup basketball or just did not feel like showing up and the guarantee is void. Get suspended by a team for conduct detrimental to the club or do something that reflects poorly on the organization and the guarantee is void. Basically, any hiccup that you can think of will likely void a guaranteed contract in the NFL.

Watson’s contract was unique because when he was traded for by the Browns it was well known that he was in the middle of multiple lawsuits which were likely going to lead to a NFL suspension.  The Browns agreed to waive the standard guarantee void language for any condition that would be triggered by anything related to these cases and any other cases that Watson thought could be coming provided that Watson provided the Browns with the details.  The language, per source with a knowledge of specific details of the contracts, seemed to pertain only to league suspensions that came down in 2022 or 2023 which would make a 2024 suspension unique even if suspended due to a potential case the Browns were already made aware of. The contract, however, should not allow the Browns to act on their own to void the guarantees if they were aware that this specific accusation was a possibility and it would require a league suspension to allow them to void the contract.

The salary cap costs to release Watson are still very high even if the Browns were able to void the guarantees. If they were able to void his guarantees this season and cut him now the cap cost would be $26.7M this year and about $80.25M in 2025. A suspension in 2024 would allow them to get credits for the bonus paid in 2024. If he was suspended in 2025, allowing the team to void the guarantee, they would have the option of taking the $80.25M cap charge in 2025 or spreading it out as $26.7M in 2025 and $53.6M in 2026. If they chose the latter the salary cap hold during free agency in 2025 would be $72.9M and then it would drop to $26.7M on June 2, 2025. In many ways the salary cap considerations are very similar to those of the Broncos with Russell Wilson this past offseason.

Taking action before the NFL issued a suspension might prove difficult. Guaranteed salary accelerates on the cap regardless of whether or not a player is released before or after June 1. That would lead to an additional $92 million in cap charges hitting the cap in 2024. If the league felt that the void was justified they would process it but in theory a grievance filed against the Browns should result in a $37.8M hold charge on the cap though there have been some rare instances where players have been reported to have filed a grievance and no cap charge was placed by the league on the team.

The Browns do have the room to absorb such a hit but it would put them in a more difficult position. If they lost the grievance they would have a massive negative adjustment to their 2025 salary cap making it very difficult to function next year. So they are most likely at the mercy of the NFL unless they have a clear out based on the circumstances of this specific accusation.

Finding a way out of the Watson contract, despite the monster short term cap consequences, would be beneficial overall for the team. The trade for Watson and subsequent contract modification will likely go down as the worst sign and trade in NFL history and this would allow them to turn the page on this era. Their path forward would remain the same, in my opinion, as if Watson was on the team- find a way to trade up in the NFL draft and get a young QB to offset the Watson salary cap issues and bring actual upside to the position. However, if they can actually move him off the team it will give the Browns, in the long term, an extra $92 million to work with and remove his presence from the sidelines while they try to develop another player.

At this stage of the game the Browns should be hoping that they can find a way out from under the contract. Watson only appeared in 12 games in his first two years with the team  and has not resembled the player he was in Houston. Just on football play alone, Watson is playing at a level where if he was truly a free agent he would be signing a backup with upside type of contract and being asked to compete for a starting job. Combine that with the fact that his situation is toxic and I am not sure he would even be in the NFL right now if not for the contract protections that the Browns gave him in 2022.  

Prior to the start of the regular season the Seahawks created $9.5 million in cap room by converting $11.875 million of WR’s D.K. Metcalf’s salary into a signing bonus. Prior to the restructure the Seahawks had around $4 million in cap room and this move gives them the breathing room to make any moves necessary during the course of the regular season.

This restructure was a departure from the Seahawks norms as they added three void years to the contract to maximize the salary cap savings. Generally, Seattle does not do this as they normally will max out at one void year. Metcalf, whose 2025 salary cap number is now $31.87 million, will be entering the final year of his contract in 2025 and the addition of these void years is probably an indication that Seattle knows that Metcalf will likely be extended next season

With NFL rosters pretty much finalized and week 1 just a few days away, I thought it would be a good time to look at just how much turnover there has been in the NFL in 2024. I looked at every roster in the NFL, not including practice squads (it does include players on reserve lists) and determined how many players were on the roster at the end of the 2023 season. The first column is inclusive of practice squad members from 2023 and the second column excludes practice squad players from 2023 as part of the calculation.

The average and median in the NFL are around 65% if we include the 2023 practice squad players and closer to 60% if we exclude them. This just illustrates how much teams churn through a roster year over year.

Only four teams will have 70% or more of their roster returning. The Colts lead the way with a crazy 81.7%. They are banking on some of the younger player improving as most teams who were at 9 wins and outside of the playoffs will tinker with their roster more than this.

The Browns have about 74% of their roster returning. They were a playoff team last season and their roster isn’t really built to deal with a ton of turnover unless they went into a full rebuild.

The Cowboys were also a playoff team and have 78% of the team returning if we consider 2023 practice squad players as part of the roster and 73% returning if we do not.  Dallas rarely touches free agents these days and almost exclusively builds via the draft. Due to this they will likely rank low in turnover and higher in returns most years. If Dallas fails to advance deep into the playoffs this approach will come under even more scrutiny.

Finally, we have the Ravens at 74 and 71% respectively. Baltimore is also a team that focuses on development via the draft but this year the salary cap likely prevented them from really adding as they are not a team against adding players.

The 49ers and Packers were both above 70% if we include the practice squad players. These are teams at two very different ends of the spectrum. San Francisco is an older team trying to get one last run out of a group. Green Bay is young all around and developing.

On the bottom end we have a few standouts. The Commanders are just gutting their team with only 39% of the 2024 roster having been in Washington in 2023. This is long overdue for a team that was headed nowhere for years. The question for them will be how patient can they be with this process.

The Panthers are right around 50% returning. Carolina is an example of a team that hasn’t been patient enough with their rebuilds and it leads to groundhog day scenarios with various GM’s. It feels like for the last decade the team has a cycle where it runs into cap issues, guts the roster like this to deal with the cap problems and poor results on the field, gets over anxious and screws up the cap with extensions and free agent signings, fires the GM, and then watches the cycle restart.

The Chargers are around 54% and probably should have been lower. They made the decision to hold on to a few expensive players who I guess will possibly be traded in season. Maybe they will be a surprise team but they would worry me as a team that probably needs to take more of a step back than they did.

The most interesting team is Miami. Their salary cap issues and roster issues have flown under the radar of the excitement of a playoff season, re-signing some star players, and the general likeability of their head coach. If we do not include the practice squad only 55% of the team is returning from last season. That is a very low number for a team that was a one and done playoff team. If we include the practice squad though we jump to nearly 65% so they are really hoping that some low cost players from last season can fill roles on the active roster this year. If it works they could have a nice setup for the future. If not expect a lot of criticism on the front office.

I think we are all caught up with all of the roster cuts from the last few days as well as today’s practice squad signings so with that in mind I have made the move to change all of the team salary cap numbers on OTC to reflect the regular season accounting rules rather than the top 51 offseason rules. Please note that the NFL does not make this change until next week so teams that are being shown as over the cap are still under the cap per official rules.

Late next week I will do a few more cap updates dealing with the 2025 season. Currently I do not have carryover estimates in for 2025. I will add those in next week once the roster movement is all complete so you can have a better idea about each teams real future salary cap situation. In addition I will update the estimates for the NFL’s 2025 salary cap limit. Whenever I do that I will make a note of it on X.

Based on our estimates the teams that have some salary cap work to do for this season include the Panthers, Ravens, Falcons, Bills, Vikings, Broncos, Saints, and Giants. The first four teams look to be over the cap while the others have less than $3 million in room. Once Hassan Reddick reports to the Jets they will also be over the cap so you can add them to the list of teams that need to free up some space. To free up space expect some injury settlements for players on IR and a possible restructure or two to bring some cap charges down for 2024. You can view our current salary cap space estimates on our Salary Cap page.

Today is one of the toughest days of the year as every NFL team will need to be down to 53 active players by 4PM this afternoon. By my count of official transactions there will be 999 players who will be cut or placed on some type of reserve list by the end of the business day. Here is a quick look at how many moves must be made by each team:

It is important to note that rarely will the roster at 4PM today actually be the final 53 man roster for a team. Players are not paid a weeks salary until the Tuesday of game week which means teams are under no obligation to anyone. Teams will make waiver claims for some of the released players and have to make a corresponding release to someone who “made the 53 man”. Teams will activate players who did not report and have to make another release to account for that. Teams will see veterans who are cut and perhaps sign them as well. The real 53 man roster really hits on September 3rd.

There will always be some releases that also catch people off guard. Usually these are veteran players on lower cost contracts who were expected to make the team. These releases are often done due to various circumstances regarding the team they play for. Though rules have changed a bit regarding injury returns (teams are allowed to designate two players to return from IR if placed on IR today and designated to return) most teams want flexibility with the return from IR rule. That requires putting an injured player on the 53 man for a day and then placing him on the reserve list tomorrow. To make room for that player often a veteran, who is not subject to waivers, will be cut for a day and then re-signed when the injured player is actually placed on IR.

Many teams also have no intention of guaranteeing a veteran player’s salary when that veteran is more of a bubble player. Teams want the flexibility of cutting a veteran during the year with limited financial penalty. A base salary guarantee for the year kicks in if the veteran player is on the 53 man roster for the 1st game of the year. To avoid that base guarantee teams will cut a veteran player, place him on the practice squad for a week, elevate him from the practice squad for week 1, and then sign him to a regular contract in week 2. A contract signed after week 1 does not carry the full salary guarantee protection.

Non-veteran players who are cut are all subject to waivers. Teams have until noon tomorrow to make a claim on those players. If claimed their contracts will transfer to the team who claimed them. If they go unclaimed they are eligible to be signed to a Practice Squad. Teams can start to fill their practice squad as soon as the waiver period expires. Generally teams are most active in the next 48 hours when it comes to waiver claims. Sometimes teams will stash a player on the 53 man with hopes of moving him to their practice squad by sneaking him through waivers next week or after the first game when teams are more focused on prepping for their games and not looking to bring another guy in.

Another important thing to note is that cutdown day does not mark the change of offseason salary cap rules where just the top 51 players count against the cap. That does not happen until the first day of the season at which point every player on a reserve list, practice squad, active roster, etc…will count against the salary cap. At OTC we will make that switch earlier to give a more accurate picture of where every team stands with the salary cap. It is possible that some teams will show they are over the cap when we do that. Technically those teams are all fine within the official NFL rules but it can give you a better idea of who does and does not need to make contract modifications to comply with the salary cap when the NFL changes the rules.

Finally please bear with us as we work through all of the roster changes. Hopefully we will work through them by late tonight but it can take some extra time to process so many transactions. The practice squad will also take some time and there is often a big delay between a team releasing on X a practice squad or leaking to media members about signings and then actually signing the player. Rather than getting names wrong, which can often happen, we generally wait until the signing is official to get them onto the roster for the team.

With the continued wide receiver contract drama in San Francisco and Dallas I wanted to briefly look at one of the big issues that is likely facing the teams and players when negotiating an extension.

The receiver market is plagued with a number of contracts where the team used “real but really fake” years to bloat the annual values of the contracts so that the contracts would seem larger than they really were.  While this is something that does happen from time to time across the league this is the only position where it actually has widespread use.

This began back in 2022 when AJ Brown, Davante Adams, and Tyreek Hill all signed contracts valued with very large APY’s but in reality were much smaller. As an example Adams signed a five year contract with the Raiders that averaged $28 million a year, but in reality the odds of earning the last two years of the contract are very slim and the real contract is three years for $22.5 million a season.

Many have mentioned to me when discussing these contracts that as the values of the contracts across the league rise that teams would not hesitate to pay these big salaries but one only has to look at Hill’s recent contract to see how that is not the case. Miami was willing to move some of that money up from the final contract year but not to the level that would make his contract worth $30 million.

Here is what the comparison looks like for the top 11 players at the position.

Jefferson of course makes things very complicated because he is a complete outlier contract as the only player legitimately earning over $30 million a season. Outlier contracts are not common in today’s NFL, but in the past they were typically non-starters in a contract discussion for another player if the outlier contract was recently signed. They might be used to push for an “inflation rate” of sorts but unless the other player was also considered a super special talent the contract was just brushed aside.

Three other contracts in the NFL have a stated value of $30 million a year or more. The actual values range between $27 and $29 million a season. Here is the breakdown of the recent players who I think would be used in a discussion for a contract extension for another player this summer.

The real values on these contracts do follow a pretty linear pattern with the main exception being Waddle who was likely slightly overpaid based on production. Collins was a unique case since there is more risk especially since his contract is almost all based on this season. That is a higher risk/reward contract signing.

When we look at Brandon Aiyuk he fits in the middle of the numbers.  He has averaged 71.4 yards per game the last two years which is less than Brown, St. Brown and Waddle. Waddle is probably the high end comp for him and my guess would be that the 49ers see that as a poor contract for Miami. That said the salary difference is not too small and I think anything between $27.5M and $28.5M a year would be a fair offer. Below that is necessarily insulting but probably not giving him enough credit. Moving above that level would either be a bad contract for the team signing him or would require doing the same fake money years others have to bloat the annual value.

CeeDee Lamb is far more interesting.  He is at 91.4 YPG the last two years and is coming off a Jefferson like year. He does not have Jefferson’s track record and Dallas should not consider using an outlier contract unless Lamb did it again this year, but his numbers are such that in this market he should earn a legit $30-$31 million per season. Teams are often very hesitant to be the first to break through a ceiling (in this case $30 million a year) but Jefferson at $34 million should make that easier to do.

Offering him in the range of the other player’s real values would probably be looked at as somewhat insulting to Lamb but  Dallas’ wide receiver history (Dez Bryant, Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup) likely makes Dallas nervous. They have quickly fallen out of love with their players even when still somewhat productive and have basically gotten a low ROI out of the position. That makes the negotiations here real interesting because it is so many different factors at play between both sides.