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Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) reacts after making a catch for a touchdown against the New York Jets during the first half at MetLife Stadium in the 2025 season. Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images

Examining the Great Miami Dolphins Cap Mystery

Originally posted on Miami Dolphins on SI
By Alain Poupart | Last updated Mar 19, 2026 7:00 PM ET

The Miami Dolphins salary cap has drawn a lot of attention this offseason, mainly because of all the cap space going to players no longer on the roster.

But there's a new factor involved these days in the aftermath of the trade that sent wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to the Denver Broncos.

This one deals with the two main sites devoted to providing salary cap information — Over The Cap and Spotrac — having the Dolphins over the cap after that Waddle trade.

Depending on which of the two websites you want to believe, as of early evening in Florida on Thursday the Dolphins were either $7.6 million (Spotrac) or $8.6 million (OTC) over the cap limit of $301.2 million.

That obviously would be a no-no according to NFL rules and would subject the Dolphins to sanctions that could include fines and go up to as far as the loss of draft picks — and we know the Dolphins value those draft picks.

So the reality is the Dolphins are not over the salary cap limit, but the information on how they remained under when Waddle's cap number jumped from its scheduled $11.8 million to $26.5 million with the trade hasn't come out.

Obviously the Dolphins have made the necessary move(s) to gain cap compliancy - we just don't yet know what that is. But the snapshot post-Waddle puts them in the hole.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) March 19, 2026

WHAT HAPPENED WITH WADDLE'S NUMBER AND AFTER

The big jump in Waddle's cap number came with the the signing bonus from his 2024 contract extension due on the cap all at once instead of continuing to be spread out over a few years.

The most common ways for teams to create cap space is by releasing players or restructuring their contract, which often is done but turning base salary into a signing bonus that can be spread out over a couple of years.

Now, we know the Dolphins haven't released any players since the Waddle trade because those would have had to be processed through the league and therefore would have been announced.

On the contrary, the Dolphins signed two players Thursday — punter Bradley Pinion and long-snapper Taybor Pepper.

Looking at the Dolphins salaries, Jordyn Brooks and Aaron Brewer are two veterans who carry a sizable base salary in 2026 at $7.8 million and $6.5 million, respectively, with each player already having three void years on their contracts.

The Dolphins could reduce those base salaries to the veteran minimum of $1.3 million for each, which would creat $$6.5 million for Brooks and $5.2 million for Brewer and, voila, the Dolphins would have $11.7 million of additional cap space.

The downside, of course, would be more cap commitment down the road with more void years for each player.

The only other contract on the books with a base salary higher than $2.5 million belongs to running back De'Von Achane, whose $6 million cap number is made up almost entirely of his base salary.

Achane also is in line for a contract extension after his brilliant performance in 2025 and if it were materialize it possibly, if not likely, would be structured so as to reduce his cap number for this year. But that alone wouldn't create enough space for make up for the Waddle jump.

As a reminder, only the top 51 cap numbers are counted against the cap limit.

Beyond Brewer, Brooks and Achane, the Dolphins don't have players with easy conversions to create cap space.

So how the Dolphins remained under the cap after the Waddle trade was processed remains a mystery. We just know that they did do it.

This article first appeared on Miami Dolphins on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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