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.