How Should The Miami Dolphins Handle Tyreek Hill's Cap Schedule Amid 2025 Uncertainty?

If the Miami Dolphins end up trading Tyreek Hill, they're going to have a larger than usual window before the big check needs to be signed. What should they do in the meantime?

If I had it my way, #10 on the Miami Dolphins would already have his ticket punched to another NFL city for the 2025 season. Between Tyreek Hill’s endless saga of headlines off the field, his sad display of leadership, maturity and more at the end of the 2024 season in New York, and his looming expiration date regardless in 2026 thanks to a massive $50M+ schedule cap hit for the year after next?

This is the kind of transition I’d be looking to make sooner rather than later. It doesn’t make you a more talented roster, but it may ultimately help make you evolve into a better team.

Whether or not the Dolphins take the opportunity to do so or not is…up in the air. (Imagine!)

But the Dolphins are facing the prospect of potentially trying to transition away from Hill while simultaneously pursuing ideal value for one of their best players. And they’re doing so against the backdrop of a restricted salary cap outlook for the beginning portions of free agency. Miami’s cap situation isn’t dire. It isn’t cataclysmic. But it is one that requires significant strategy. And foiling those decisions against the potential waiting game the team faces for a proper offer for Hill (assuming they’d take it) only further complicates the matter.

The Dolphins’ current schedule for Hill’s cash payment is of particular interest. Hill is scheduled, according to Spotrac, to receive a $1,000,000 roster bonus on March 14th. He’s due another $15,850,000 option bonus on August 31st — which should be considered the drop dead date by which Hill needs to be traded if the team is going to move on from him this year. If you’re going to write a check for $15.85M and prorate out 80% of it into future years of cap debt, you’d better be prepared to ride the wave and keep Hill under contract for 2025.

Hill is also scheduled to receive $10,000,000 in base salary, which is the grand sum of the weekly checks he will collect throughout the course of the season. This brings his 2025 cash schedule to a full total of:

• $10M in base salary

• $15.85M option bonus due on 8/31

• $1M roster bonus due 3/14

• $1.8M in per-game active bonuses throughout the season

$28,650,000 in total cash due. (This is, again a part of the reason why I have a hard time reconciling a team captain who quit on his team, regardless of the score and situation. But I digress.) How do the Dolphins navigate their salary cap and budget needs while still holding out for whatever opportunities may come their way to maximize the chance to transition away from him this offseason?

Here’s a unique idea…