Where Daniels Ranks Among Biggest Free Agent Flops

The most eye-opening of the Miami Dolphins' roster purges Monday wasn't Tyreek Hill or Bradley Chubb (even though that one wasn't officially announced) because those were expected.

No, that distinction belongs to veteran James Daniels and the salary cap implications that make it so startling, as in the Dolphins really wanted that guy gone.

This might have flown a bit under the radar, but the Dolphins actually will be devoting more cap space to Daniels in 2026 with him gone from the roster than on it.

And, yes, the same situation ultimately might apply to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, but that's an entirely different set of circumstances.

The Dolphins moved on from Daniels after he gave the team exactly three snaps after signing as a free agent and will take a $4.8 million cap hit when his original cap number was $3.6 million for 2026.

And it sure isn't like the Dolphins don't have a need at guard, where the list of players under contract for next season consists of Jonah Savaiinaea, Kion Smith and Josh Priebe, with Andrew Meyer as a possibility if he's moved from center.

The Daniels move came less than a year after the Dolphins made him their biggest free agent acquisition of the 2025 offseason, and now that signing has to be discussed among the worst the team has made.

WHY THE DOLPHINS DUMPED DANIELS

As Dolphins fans are well aware, Daniels landed on injured reserve after the opener against the Indianapolis Colts with former head coach Mike McDaniel explaining it was a tough call to put him on IR because his timetable to return was right around that four-week mark.

Daniels never played another down.

Throughout the season, McDaniel would be asked about Daniels' status, and there never were clear answers as to what was going on. McDaniel said this late in the season when asked whether there had been a setback: “I don’t want to arbitrarily say he is or he isn’t, but I don’t. I don’t really know if he will return or not, so that’s kind of where I’m at.”

McDaniel finally said before the Week 17 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that he didn't anticipate Daniels playing again.

So what happened with Daniels? Sources suggested the guard was hesitant to play again last season after the pectoral injury, and South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Dave Hyde wrote Monday that Daniels flat-out declined to play.

Remember that Daniels missed most of the 2020 season while with the Chicago Bears because of a pectoral injury and he also signed with Miami after missing most of the 2024 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers because of a torn Achilles.

We'll also point out that Daniels is fine now because his release did not come with a "failed physical" designation, as was the case with Tyreek Hill.

So, yes, this was a case of the Dolphins deciding they had no use for Daniels, even though he was by far the most taltented guard on the roster.

Daniels, who signed a three-year, $24 million contract with the Dolphins, pocketed $7.3 million for his one year in Miami, a pretty good rate of a little more than $2.4 million per snap.

OTHER DOLPHINS FREE AGENT FLOPS

The Daniels experience unfortunately brought back memories of another short Dolphins free agent fiasco, the one involving wide receiver Will Fuller.

Signed away from the Houston Texans in 2021, Fuller got a fully guaranteed one-year deal worth $10 million.

Fuller didn't play in the season opener against the New England Patriots that year because he needed to serve the final game of an NFL suspension related to performance-enhancing substances. He then was inactive for Week 2 after being on the injury report because of "personal reasons."

Fuller made his debut in Week 3, but then sustained a finger injury the following week and landed on IR.

That was it.

He never played for the Dolphins or in the NFL again, validating the rumblings that he just didn't have a strong desire to play.

He wound up playing 65 snaps for Miami.

Other Dolphins free agent flops:

RB Jordan Howard, 2020 — He was signed to jazz up the running game after QB Ryan Fitzpatrick led the team in rushing the previous season, but instead he wound up getting released in November of that year with an unsightly 1.2-yard average.

G Josh Sitton, 2018 — This one requires an asterisk because it wasn't so much that Sitton was a bust, but rather that he went down with a shoulder injury in his very first game with Miami, ending his NFL career.

TE Eric Green, 1995 — We go way back for this one. The Dolphins signed the former Pittsburgh Steelers first-round pick to a six-year, $12 million deal, obviously a large investment for a very large man. Problem was, Green was too large.

After making the Pro Bowl in his last two seasons in Pittsburgh, Green was merely solid for Miami and when Jimmy Johnson took over in 1996 and went looking for place to clear up a messy cap situation, he found Green. He was done after only one forgettable season.

From this vantage point, the winner for biggest free agent flop just might have to go to Daniels, with Green second and Fuller third.